PROCEEDINGS 



FIRST AND SUBSEQUENT fiNNUllL SND SPRING MEETINGS 



FIRST AND SUBSEQUENT ANNUAL DINNERS 

FROM 1880 TO 1895 INCLUSIVE 



THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY 




IN THE CITY OF BROOKLYN 

AND NAMES OF MEMBERS. 



VOL. L 



Comprising proceedings from 1880 to 1888, inclusive. 
Printed for the Use of the Society. 

BROOKLYN. 

■- 1896. 



By trausfet 

OCT 20 1915 



CONTENTS VOL. I. 



Certificate of Incorporation 1880 

By-Laws. 

First Annual Meeting of the Society 1880 

President's Report. ...'...••• 

Speeches at First Annual Dinner 1880 

Second Annual Meeting of the Society, 1881 

President's Report. .......... 

Speeches at Second Annual Dinner 1881 

Correspondence. ........... 

Third Annual Meeting of the Society, 18S2 

President's Report 

Speeches at Third Annual Dinner, 1882 

Fourth Annual Meeting of the Society, 1883 

President's Report. 

Speeches at Fourth Annual Dinner, 1883 

The Old District School House. Address by Hon. Calvin E. Pratt, 

at Spring Meeting. ......... 

Fifth Annual Meeting of the Society, 1884 

President's Report. .......... 

Speeches at Fifth Annual Dinner, 1S84 

Witches in Salem and Elsewhere. Address by Rev. John Chadwick, 

at Spring Meeting 

The Pilgrim Fathers, neither Puritans nor Persecutors, . . ■\ 

A Valuable Lecture in London by Benjamin Scott, Chamberlain, > 1885 

etc., F. R. A. S ) 

Sixth Annual Meeting of the Society, 1885 

President's Report 

Speeches at Sixth Annual Dinner 1885 

Invitation to the Hon. Benjamin D. Silliman. Correspondence. 
The Soldiers and Sailors of New England. Hon. W. P. Sheffield, 

at Spring Meeting."^ 

Seventh Annual Meeting of the Society 1886 

President's Report 

Speeches at Seventh Annual Dinner 

Eighth Annual Meeting of the Society 1886 

President's Report 

Speeches at Eighth Annual Dinner, 1887 

Miles Standish. Address by Hon. John L. Swift, at Spring Meeting, 18S8 

Ninth Annual Meeting of the Society 1888 

President's Address 

Speeches at Ninth Annual Dinner, 1888 

Two Hundred and Fifty Years Ago. Address by Robert D. 

Benedict, Esq., at Spring Meeting, 1889 



INTHE 



|^J^-^||^^|jJf|j^]^ 




JJLWEl IBi 



CONTENTS. 



Objects of the Society, ....... 3 

Terms of Membership, ...... 3 

Applications for Membership, ...... 3 

Certificate of Incorporation, ...... 4 

Of^cers, 6 

Directors, ......... 7 

The Council, ......... 7 

Standing Committees, ....... 8 

By-Laws, .......... 9 

Life Members, ........ 17 

Annual Members, ..... . . 18 

Annual Meeting of the Society, . . . • 23 ] 

Inside 

Annual Festival, . . . . . . 23 1 Back 

j Cover 

Form of Bequest, . . . . . . • 23 J 



IN THE 




OFFICERS 

AND 

MEMBERS 



Objects of the Society. 



The New England Society in the City of Brooklyn is 
organized to commemorate the landing of our Pilgrim Fathers 
on Plymouth Rock; to encourage the study of New England 
history, and for such purpose to establish a library, and also 
for social purposes, and to promote charity and good fellow- 
ship among its members. 



Terms of Membership. 



Initiation Fee, $10.00 

Annual Dues, 5.00 

Life-Memi3ERSHIP, besides tJic Initiation Fci\ 50.00 

Payable at Eleetion, exeept Annual Dues wJiieJi are payable in 
January 188 1, and yearly thereafter. 

Any descendant of a New Englander, of good moral char- 
acter, from and after the age of 18, is eliijible. 

The widow or child of a member, if in need of it, is entitled 
to five times as much as he may have paid the Society. 

The friends of a deceased member are requested to give the 
Historiographer early information of the time and place of his 
birth and death, with brief incidents of his life for publication 
in our annual report. Members who change their address 
should give the Secretary early notice. 

%^^ It is desirable to have all worthy gentlemen of New 
England descent residing in Brooklyn, become members of the 
Society. Members are requested to send applications of their 
friends for membership to the Secretary. 

Address, 

A. E. LAMB, Secretary, 

No. 191 Clinton Street. 



Certificate of Incorporation. 



State of New York, ) 
County of Kings, - ss.: 
City of Brooklyn, ) 

We, the undersigned citizens of the United States and 
citizens of the State of New York, to wit: Benjamin D. 
SilHman, Calvin E. Pratt, Ripley Ropes, Charles Storrs, Hiram 
W. Hunt, Wm. B. Kendall, and John Winslow, do hereby 
certify, that we desire to form a Society pursuant to the pro- 
visions of an act entitled "An Act for the Incorporation of 
Societies or Clubs for certain lawful purposes," passed May 12, 
1873, and of the act extending and amending said act. 

That the corporate name of said Society is to be TllE 
New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, and 
the objects for which such Society is formed are to encourage 
the study of New England History, and for such purpose to 
establish a Library, and also for social purposes, and to pro- 
mote charity and good fellowship among its members. 

That the term of existence of the said Society is to be 
fifty years. 

That the number of Directors who shall manage the con- 
cerns of said Society shall be twelve, and the names of such 
Directors for the first }ear are the following, to wit : Benjamin 
D. Silliman, John Winslow, Calvin E. Pratt, Henry W. Slocum, 
Wm. B. Kendall, Charles Storrs, Wm. H. Lyon, Ripley Ropes, 
Geo. H. P^isher, Hiram W. Hunt, A. S. Barnes, A. W. Tenny. 

That the name of the City in which the operations of such 
Society are to be carried on, is the Cit)' of Brooklyn, in the 
County of Kings, and State of New York. 

IV^'/zuss: BEN J. D. SILLIMAN, 

J()nN Hevdinger, Jr. C. E. PRATT. 

RIPLEY ROPES. 
JOHN WINSLOW. 
HIRAM W. HUNT. 
CHAS. STORRS. 
WM. B. KENDALL. 



State of New York, ) 
County of Kings, -ss.: 
City of Brooklyn, ) 

On this 26th day of February, A. D., 1880, before me per- 
sonally appeared, Benj. D. Silliman, Calvin E. Pratt, Ripley 
Ropes, Chas. Storrs, Hiram W. Hunt, William B. Kendall, and 
John Winslow, to me known to be the individuals described in 
and who executed the foregoing certificate, and they severally, 
before me signed the said certificate, and acknowledged that 
they signed the same for the purposes therein mentioned. 

JOHN HEYDINGER, Jr., 

Notary Public, 

Kings County, 

N. Y. 



I hereby approve the within Certificate and consent that 
it be filed. 

J. W. GH^BERT, 

J. s. c. 



Filed in the Office of the Clerk of the County of Kings 
and in the Office of the Secretary of State at Albany, Feb- 
ruary 27th, 1880, for the Incorporators, by 

JOHN WINSLOW. 




OFFICERS 



President : 
BENJAMIN D. SILLIMAN. 

First I ^iee-Presidetit : 
JOHN WINSLOW. 

Seeond Viee-Preside)it : 
CHARLES STORRS. 

Treasurer : 
WILLIAM B. KENDALL. 

Historiographer : 
ALDEN J. SPOON ER. 

Librarian : 
REV. H. W. VVHITTEMORE. 

Correspond ini^ Seeretary : 
REV. A. P. PUTNAM. 

Recording Seeretary : 
ALBERT E. LAMB. 



DIRECTORS. 



Benjamin D, Silliman, 
Ripley Ropes, 
Hiram W. Hunt, 
Wm. B. Kendall, 
William H. Lyon, 
A. S. Barnes, 



Calvin E. Pratt, 
John Winslow, 
Charles Storks, 
Henry W. Slocum, 
Georce H. Fisher, 
A. W. Tenney. 



THE COUNCIL. 



Alexander M. White, 
A. A. Low, 
Horace B. Claflin, 
John B. Hutchinson, 
Charles Pratt, 

S. B. CtllTTENDEN, 

Joshua M. Van Cott, 
John F. Henry, 
R. Cornell White, 
Albert Woodruff, 
Amos Robbins, 
E. H. R. Lyman, 
Leonard Richardson, 
Charles E. Bill, 
William Coit, 



Henry E. Pierrepont 
John Greenwood, 
Charles E, West, 
Charles L. Benedict, 
George G. Reynolds. 
S. L. Woodford, 
Thomas H. Rodman, 
Benj. F. Tracy, 
E. R. Durkee, 
Gordon L. Ford, 
John M. Stearns, 
E. S. Sanford, 
Arthur Mathewson, 
Augustus Storrs, 
James Howe. 



STANDING COMMITTEES. 



Couiuiittcc on Annual Festival : 

A. S. Barnes, A. W. Tenney, 

Hiram W. Hunt. 



Coiinnittee on Finance: 

Charles Storrs, William E. Lvon, 

George H. Fisher. 



Committee on Publication : 

John Winslow, William B. Kendall 

Charles Storrs. 



Committee on Charity: 

Ripley Ropes, Calvin E. Pratt, 

Henry W. Slocum. 



By-Laws of the Society, 



ARTICLE I. 

OBJECT OF THE SOCIETY. 

The New England Society in the City of Brookl}-n is or- 
ganized to commemorate the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers on 
Plymouth Rock, to encourage the study of New England his- 
tory, and for such purpose to establish a library, and also for 
social purposes, and to promote charity and good fellowship 
among its members, as set forth in the Society's certificate of 
incorporation. 

ARTICLE II. 

MEMBERSHIP. 

Any person of the age of eighteen years and over, being 
a native or descendant of a native of any of the New England 
States, and of good moral character, may, at any meeting of 
the Board of Directors, or of the Society, be admitted a mem- 
ber of the Society. And, being so admitted, shall become a 
member thereof, on subscribing to the By-Laws and paying to 
the Treasurer of the Society an admission fee of ten dollars. 

The Board of Directors shall have power to admit honorary 
members. 

ARTICLE III. 

ANNUAL FESTIVAL. 

For the purpose of promoting the objects of the Societ}% its 
Annual Festival shall be held on the twenty-second day of De- 
cember, in each year, unless that day be Sunday, in which case 
it shall be held on the twenty-third day of December, at an 
hour and place to be provided by the Officers of the Society, 
in conjunction with the Committee on Annual Festival. Such 



10 

Officers and Committee shall have charge of and make all suit- 
able arrano"ements for such festival. 



ARTICLE IV. 

ANNUAL MEETINU. 

The Annual Meeting shall be held not less than one week 
before the Annual Festival, at such time and place as the Di- 
rectors may determine. At least one week's notice of the 
time and place of such meeting shall be given by publication 
in two daily papers in the City of Brookh-n, and by mailing- 
through the post office a written or printed notice to each 
member of the Society. 

ARTICLE V. 

ELECTION AND DUTIES OF DIRECTORS. 

At such Annual Meeting the Directors shall be elected in 
the manner and for the terms following, to wit : One class, 
consisting of three Directors, who shall hold office for the term 
of four years ; except, however, that at the first election there 
shall be elected together, by ballot, twelve Directors, whose 
terms of office shall be ascertained by lot, as follows: Immedi- 
ately on their being so elected, a Committee of three of the Di- 
rectors, selected by the Chair, shall cause to be prepared written 
slips, on which shall be written the several names of the Directors 
elected (one for each name), and shall cause such slips to be 
placed in a receptacle suitable for drawing lots ; and thereupon 
the Chairman shall at once proceed to draw from said recep- 
tacle, such slips with name separately, and the three persons 
whose names shall be first drawn in succession, shall hold office 
for four years each ; the three persons whose names shall be 
next drawn in succession, shall hold office for three years, each ; 
the next three persons so drawn, shall hold office for two years 
each; and the last three persons so drawn, shall hold office for 
one year each. 

A majority of the Directors shall be a quorum, and vacan- 
cies shall be filled by the Board. 



11 

ARTICLE VI. 

COUNCIL. 
There shall be a Council of thirty members, to be appointed 
by the Directors annually. It shall be the duty of the Council 
to advise the Directors and Officers as to the best means of 
promoting the interests of the Society. The members of the 
Council may attend the meetings of the Directors for consulting 
and advisory purposes. 

ARTICLE VII. 

OFUCERS AND THEIR ELECTION. 

The several officers of the Society shall be a President, ist 
Vice-President, 2d Vice-President, a Recording Secretary, 
Treasurer, Corresponding Secretary, Historiographer and Li- 
brarian. Such officers shall be elected or appointed by the Di- 
rectors at the next meeting of the Board following the Annual 
Meeting of the Society, each for the term of one year, or until 
their successors are elected or appointed, and their several terms 
shall commence on the day of their election, except for the first 
year they shall commence when elected or appointed by the 
Directors. 

ARTICLE VIII. 

DUTIES OF OFFICERS. 
A )inual Report by the President. 

The President shall make a report at the Annual Meeting 
of the Society, stating, among other things, the membership 
and the increase thereof in the year. He shall also give brief 
sketches of members who have died in the year, and give a 
summary of the finances of the Society, showing the receipts 
and disbursements, and make such recommendations as he may 
deem desirable to promote the interests of the Society. 

The President, and if he be absent, the ist Vice-President, 
and if both are absent, the 2d Vice-President, and if all three 
are absent, a Chairman to be selected by the Society, shall pre- 
side at the meetings thereof, and the same rule shall apply at 
meetings of the Directors. But the presiding officer of the Di- 
rectors shall not vote unless he be a Director. 



12 

ARTICLE IX. 

Special Meetings of Directors. 

The President, and if he be absent from the City, either of 
the Vice-Presidents or any three Directors, may call a special 
meeting of the Directors, by not less than one day's notice sent 
by mail. 

ARTICLE X. 

SPECIAL MEETINGS OF THE SOCIETY. 

The President, and if he be absent from the City, one of the 
Vice-Presidents, may, on the request of any ten members, call 
a special meeting of the Society, by not less than three days' 
notice to members by mail, and by publication in two daily pa- 
pers in the City of Brooklyn. 

ARTICLE XI. 

RECORDING SECRETARY. 

The Recording Secretary shall have custody of the Society's 
seal, and it shall be his duty to notify members of the Council 
and officers and members of the Society of their election, and 
to keep the minutes of the Society and Board of Directors, give 
notice of their meetings as provided by the By-Laws, furnish 
the President with data for his annual report, prepare and have 
printed annually a pamphlet under the direction of the Com- 
mittee on Publication, containing a list of the ofTficers and the 
Council and members, also the By-Laws and proceedings of the 
Society, and perform such other duties as may be required of 
him. 

ARTICLE XII. 

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY. 

It shall be the duty of the Corresponding Secretary to con- 
duct general correspondence for the Society, and such as the 
Board of Directors or the several Committees may require. 



13 
ARTICLE XIII. 

HISTORIOGRAPHER. 

It shall be the duty of the Historiographer to prepare the 
necrology of deceased members, and make an annual report to 
the Society, showing the date of the admission of any deceased 
member, whether Annual, Life or Honorary; also when and 
where such member was born and when and where he died. 
A copy of such report shall be furnished to the President two 
weeks before the Annual Meeting of the Society. 



ARTICLE XIV. 

LIBRARIAN. 

It shall be the duty of the Librarian to classify, catalogue 
and preserve such books and pamphlets as may come into the 
possession of the Society, suitably acknowledge donations 
thereof, or of relics, and make an annual report to the Society 
of the condition and progress of the Library, including a par- 
ticular statement of donations to the Library. 



ARTICLE XV. 

STANDING COMMITTEES. 

There shall be four Standing Committees, each consisting 
of three Directors, to be appointed by the President as soon 
after the election of officers as may be covenient in each year, 
as follows : 

A Committee on Finance, a Committee on Charity, a Com- 
mittee on Annual Festival, and a Committee on Publication. 



ARTICLE XVI. 

THE COMMITTEE ON PUBLICATION. 

It shall be the duty of the Committee on Publication to su- 
pervise all publications made by or for the Society. 



14 
ARTICLE XVII. 

THE COMMITTEE OX FINANCE. 

It shall be the duty of the Committee on Finance to audit 
all accounts against the Society ; to execute the orders of the 
Board of Directors in relation to the funds of the Society, and 
the payment and disposition thereof ; to give warrants on the 
Treasurer for all moneys appropriated by the Board of Direc- 
tors ; and to perform such other specific duties as shall be as- 
signed them by the Board of Directors. 



ARTICLE XVIII. 

COMMITTEE ON CHARITY. 

It shall be the duty of the Committee on Charity faithfully 
to distribute and expend, according to the By-Laws of the So- 
ciety, all moneys appropriated by the Board of Directors for 
charitable purposes, and to render an account of their proceed- 
ings annually at the meeting of the Board of Directors next 
preceding the Annual Meeting of the Society. 



ARTICLE XIX. 

COMMITTEE ON ANNUAL FESTIVAL. 

It shall be the duty of the Committee on Annual Festival 
to act jointly wnth the officers in the arrangements for the An- 
nual Festival provided for in Article III. 



ARTICLE XX. 

ADMISSION FEES. 

Each person who shall be admitted a member of the Society 
shall pay on his admission the sum of ten dollars as required by 
the second article of these By-Laws, and annually thereafter 
the sum of five dollars for annual dues. 



15 

Any person elected a member of the Society, and in good 
standing therein, may become a Hfe member (exempt from the 
payment of annual dues) by the payment into the treasury of 
the sum of fifty dollars at one payment. Any member may 
become a life member by paying a sum which, in addition to 
what he may have paid in annual dues, shall amount to fifty 
dollars. 

No annual dues shall be pa\^able until January, 1881, and 
the same shall be payable thereafter in January of each year to 
the Treasurer. All dues not paid on or before the 1st day of 
November of each year shall be deemed in arrears. 

No member in arrears for annual dues shall vote at any 
meeting of the Society or be eligible to any office or to mem- 
bership of the Board of Directors. If such annual dues of any 
member shall remain unpaid for more than one year, his mem- 
bership shall thereby be suspended, except in case of absence 
from the country during the whole of such year, and upon the 
order of the Directors such membership shall terminate. 

The interest of any member in the funds and property of 
the Society shall cease upon the expiration of his membership, 
whether by death, resignation or otherwise. All the interest in 
the funds and property of the Society of any person ceasing to 
be a member shall go to and be vested in the Society. 



ARTICLE XXI. 

ANNUAL MEETINC OK THE SOCIETY. 

Order of Busi)icss. 

1st. Reading and Appro\al of the Minutes of the last 
meeting. 

2d. Election of Members. 

3d. Reports from Standing Committees. 

4th. Report of Treasurer. 

5th. Report of Historiographer. 

6th. Report of Librarian. 

7th. Annual Report of the President. 

8th. Other Business. 



16 

ARTICLE XXII. 

directors' meetings. 

Order of Business. 

1st. Reading and Approval of the Minutes of the last 
meeting. 

2d. Reports from Committes. 
3d. Election of Members. 
4th. Report from the Treasurer. 
5th. Other Business. 



ARTICLE XXIII. 

The widow or children of a deceased member, if in need of 
it, are entitled, for five successive years, to an annuity from the 
funds of the Society, to the full amount the deceased member 
has actually paid into its treasury. Provided, however, the said 
annuity shall in no case be paid to a widow of a member after 
she shall have married again, nor to children after they shall 
be able to earn their own subsistence. 



ARTICLE XXIV. 

The By-Laws of the Society may be altered or amended at 
any meeting of the Directors : Provided, the proposed alterations 
shall have been submitted at a previous meeting in writing, at 
least one month in advance, and shall be adopted by the vote 
of two-thirds of the Directors. 




INTHE 



iiJS'^ If ^OMIlTij!^ 




BY-LAWS 

OFFICKRS 

AND 

MEMHKUS 

PROCEEDIN&S 

AT TIIE FIRST iVNNFAL MEEITNO, 1)K( .71?AM) 

xVr l^E FIRST ANNUAL FESTIVAL 



^l-ll mT 



>t 



OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY. 



The New England Society in the City of Brooklyn is organized to commemo- 
rate the landing of our Pilgrim Fathers on Plymouth Rock ; to encourage the study 
of New England history, and for such purpose to establish a library, and also for 
social purposes, and to promote charity and good fellowship among its members. 



TERMS OF MEMBERSHIP. 



Initiation Fee, ...... $1000 

Annual Dues, 5.00 

Life-Membership, />esi({es the Initiation Fee, 50,00 
Pavable at Election, except An)iital Dues ivhic/t are payable in Jan nary of each year. 

.'\n annual member may become a life member any time upon paying a sum in 
addition to what he has previously paid in annual dues, that together shall amount 
to fifty dollars. 

Any descendant of a New Englander, of good moral character, from and after 
the age of 18, is eligible. 

The widow or child of a member, if in need of it, is entitled to five times as 
much as he may have paid the .'-Society. 

The friends of a deceased member are requested to give the Historiographer early 
information of the time and place of his birth and death, with brief incidents of his 
life for publication in our annual report. Members who change their address 
should give the Secretary early notice. 

11;;^° It is desirable to have all worthy gentlemen of New England descent 
residing in Brooklyn, become memljers of the Society. Members are requested to 
send applications of their friends for membership to the Secretary. 

Address, 

A. E. LAMB, Secretary, 

No. 191 Clinton Street. 



OFFICERS. 



President : 
BENJAMIN D. SILLIMAN. 



First Vice-President : 
JOHN WINSLOW. 



Second Vice-President : 
CHARLES STORRS. 



Treasurer : 
WILLIAM B. KENDALL. 



Historiographer : 
ALDEN T- SPOONER. 



Librarian : 
REV. W. H. WHITTEMORE. 



Corresponding Secretary : 
REV. A. P. PUTNAM. 



Recording Secr-etary : 
ALBERT E. LAMB. 



DIRECTORS. 



For One Year : 

John Winslow, Calvin E. Pratt, 

A. W. Tenney. 



For T7V0 Years : 

Ripley Ropes, A. S. Barnes, 

Henry W. Slocum. 



For Three Years : 

Benjamin D. Silliman, Hiram W. Hunt, 

George H. Fisher. 



For Four Years : 

William H. Lyon, Wm. B. Kendall, 

Charles Storrs. 



THE COUNCIL. 



Alexander M. White, 
A. A. Low, 
Horace B. Claflin, 
John B. Hutchinson, 
Charles Pratt, 
S. B. Chittenden, 
Joshua M. Van Cott, 
John F. Henry, 
R. Cornell White, 
Albert Woodruff, 



Amos Bobbins, 
E. H. R. Lyman. 
Leonard Richardson, 
Charles E. Bill, 
William Coit, 
Henry E. Pierrepont, 
John Greenwood, 
Charles E. West, 
Charles L. Benedict, 
George G. Reynolds, 



S. L. Woodford, 
Thomas H. Rodman, 
Benj. F. Tracy, 

E. R. DURKEE, 

Gordon L. Ford, 

D. L. Northrop, 

E. S. Sandford, 
Arthur Mathewson, 
Augustus Storrs, 
James Howe. 



STANDING COMMITTEES. 



Committee on Annual Festival : 

Wm. B. Kendall, Calvin E. Pratt, 

Hiram W. Hunt. 



Committee on Finance : 

Charles Storks, William E. Lyon, 

George H. Fisher. 



Committee on Publication : 

John Winsi.ow, A. S. Barnes, 

Charles Storrs. 



Committee on Charity : 

Rii'LEV Roi'Es. Henry W. Slocum, 

A. W. Tenney. 



THE FIRST ANNUAL MEETING. 



The first Annual Meeting of the New England Society in the City of Brook- 
lyn, was, held at the Assembly Room of the Academy of Music on Tuesday 
evening, December 7th, 1880. There was a large attendance of members. 

Mr. Benjamin D. Silliman, President of the Society, called the meeting to 
order and officiated as Chairman. On motion several gentlemen were elected 
members of the Society. 

Mr. Charles Storrs, Chairman of the "Committee on Finances," reported that 
the Treasurer's account had been auditeil l)y the Committee and found correct. 

Mr. William B. Kendall, Treasurer, presented his annual report, showing a 
balance on hand of $3,474.82. 

On motion this report was accepted and ordered to be placed on file and also 
spread upon the Minutes. 

Mr. Alden J. Spooner, Historiographer, reported that none of the members of 
the Society had died. 

Rev. W. H. Whittemore, Librarian, reported that no contributions to the 
Library had been received. 

The President read his annual report, showing the prosperous condition of the 
Society. 

On motion this report was accepted and ordered to be spread upon the 
Minutes and also published in the annual pamphlet issued by the Society. 

The following is the 

PRESIDENT'S FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 

Gent!eine)i of the A'ew England Society in the City of Brooklyn : The Eighth 
Article of the By-Laws provides that the President shall make a report at the 
Annual Meeting of the Society, stating, among other things, the membership, and' 
the increase thereof during the year ; that he shall give brief sketches of members 
who have died during the year ; that he shall also give a summary of the finances 
of the Society, showing the receipts and disbursements ; and that he shall make such 
recommendations as he may deem desirable to promote the interests of the Society. 
The period is so brief since the establishment of our association that tliere is 
little material, and no necessity, for an extended statement under these require- 
ments. The Society consists of 368 members, all of whom have joined it within the 
past year. 

I am not aware that any person who had become a member of the Society has 
died. 

As you have already learned by the Report of the Treasurer the receipts have 
been $3,764 15, and the disbursements $289,33, leaving in the Treasury the sum 
of $3,474-82. This amount will, it is presumed be largely increased by fees 



from new members. Everything in the history of the Society therefore, and the 
spirit and cordial good feeling manifested by its members, afford a gratifying 
augury of its future success and usefulness. The declared object of our Society 
is to commemorate the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers on Plymouth Rock ; 
to encourage the study of New England history, and to that end to establish a 
library; and also for social purposes; and to promote charity and good fellow- 
ship among its members. These are its purposes as set forth in the Certificate 
of Incorporation. 

I gladly call your attention also to the 23d by-law, which provides that the 
widow or children of a deceased member (if in need of it) shall be entitled, for 
five successive years, to an annuity from the funds of the Society, to the full 
amount the deceased member may have paid into its treasury. These are ends 
well worthy our joint and earnest eftbrt. 

Let it be also our aim to extend the influence of those great constitutional and 
moral principles which have given New England such wide sway in the affairs of 
the nation, and which we believe essential to the best interests and perpetuity of 
the Republic. 

It is possible that some members of the Society are not informed as to the time, 
and mode, of its organization, and it may therefore be proper to state them here. 
About a year since the establishment of a permanent society to consist of 
natives, or descendants of natives, of New England was considered by a number 
of gentlemen, and the question necessarily arose as to the mode in which it could 
be incorporated and put in operation. A special charter by the Legislature 
could not be procured. The Constitution of the State provides (Art. 8., 
Sec. I.) that corporations may be formed under general laws, but shall not 
be created by special act, except for municipal purposes, and in cases 
where, in the judgment of the Legislature, the objects of the corporation 
cannot be attained under general laws. Pursuant to this constitutional pro- 
vision a general law was passed by the Legislature, for the formation of societies 
for certain specified purposes, including such as this, by filing with the Secretary 
of State, and with the County Clerk, a certificate duly signed and acknowledged 
by five or more persons, containing the names of the directors for the first year, 
and other particulars specified by the Act. As this Statute entirely sufficed for 
the purpose of this Society, no other mode of incorporating it existed. Nor 
was there need of any other mode. A certificate containing the statements so 
required was therefore signed and acknowledged pursuant to the statute, and 
filed on the 27th February, iSSo, and the Society was fully organized under the 
provisions of the general law. 

The Annual Festival (popularly better known as the New England Dinner) 
provided for by the 3d Article of the By-Laws, was thereby directed to be held 
on the 22d day of December, but it was found that, for various reasons, the 21st 
of December would be a more expedient day for the purpose. Steps have 
accordingly been taken to have such By-Law duly amended, by substituting that 
day for the 22d. That the 21st (and not the 22d) was in fact the day when the 
Pilgrim P'athers landed from the Mayflower on the Rock of Plymouth, will be 
proven to us by one of our learned members who will favor us with a paper 
on that subject this evening. 

At the conclusion of the President's address, on motion, the President ap- 
pointed Rev. A. P. Putnam and Messrs. Benjamin Y. Tracy, Henry E. Pierre- 



9 

pont, James Howe and Nelson G. Carman, Ji., a committee to nominate Di- 
rectors. 

This Committee made a report, wlierein they nominated the following 
gentlemen : Benjamin D. Silliman, Ripley Ropes, Hiram W. Hunt, Wm. B. 
Kendall, Wm H. Lyon, A. S. Barnes, Calvin E. Pratt, John Winslow, Charles 
Storrs, Henry W. Slocum, George H. Fisher and A. W. Tenny. 

On motion the report of this Committee was accepted and the gentlemen nom- 
inated were, by ballot, elected Directors. 

The President appointed Messrs. Wm. B. Kendall, Hiram W. Hunt and Wm. 
H. Lyon, a Committee to assist in classifying the Directors as provided by Article 5, 
of the By-Laws, and thereupon the terms of office of the Directors were ascer- 
tained by lot by the President as prescribed by such Article, as follows : 

For Four Years. 
Wm. H. Lyon, Wm. B. Kendall and Charles Storrs. 

For Three Ye.a,rs. 
Benjamin D. Silliman, Hiram W. Hunt and George H. Fisher. 

For Two Years. 
Ripley Ropes, A. S. Barnes and Henry W. Slocum. 

For (3ne Year. 
A. W. Tenny, John Winslow and Calvin E. Pratt. 

Professor Charles E. West then read the following paper (prepared upon the 
invitation of the Directors) showing that the 2ist day of December is the true anni- 
versary day of the Landing of the Pilgrims. 

PROFESSOR WEST'S ADDRESS. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the A''ew England Society of Brooklyn : In 
compliance with your request, I have prepared a brief paper to show that the 
landing of our Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth, Mass., occurred December 21st (new 
style), 1620. 

As all the early chronicles, I believe, agree that the landing was effected 
Monday, December II (old style), 1620, it becomes a very simple mathematical 
problem to change this number in old style into its corresponding number m new 
style. This then, is the problem. 

New and old styles must be understood; hence, reference to calendars is neces- 
sary. In passing, we may simply allude to the more ancient Christian calendars, 
as that of the Church of Rome, under Pope Julius, in A. D. 336; that by Pole- 
meus Sylvius, in 448 ; that of Carthage, in 483, discovered by Mabillon, the man- 
uscript of which is still preserved in the Abbey of St. Germaine de Pies, in Paris. 
The next known calendar, in the order of time, is that published by D'Achery, 
dating A.D. 826, in which the vernal ecpiinox is assigned to March 2ist, as fixed by 
the Nicene Council of A.D. 325. 

Time would fail me to speak of several Saxon calendars, but one of which was 
written in Saxon, while the others were written in Latin ; all of which are de- 
scribed by the great Anglo Saxon .scholar, Doctor George Hicks. These manu- 
scripts are found in the Bodleian and other English libraries. The most elegant 
calendar, or rather, Menology, is the Calendarium, or Menologium Poeticum, 
belonging to the Cotton Library, which is somewhat earlier than A.D. 988. 



10 

The three earlier Vedas contain a calendar with the old Indian Cycle of five 
years. In this the ratio of solar and lunar time is given. The Zodiac is divided 
into twenty-seven asterisms, beginning with the Pleiades. The solstitial points 
are reckoned to be at the beginning of the constellation Dhanishtka, and in the 
middle of Aslesha. and this according to the calculations of modern astronomy 
was the case in the fourteenth century, B.C. 

The lime assigned will not allow me to pursue this fascinating track ! 

The value of a correct chronology is not to be underated. Gibbon, remarking 
on the chronology of English history says : "It may be considered as a neglected 
department. Events narrated by our ancient writers are frequently put with a 
variation of one, two or more years. This often depends merely upon the different 
modes they followed in calculating the commencement of tiie year. Some began 
it in the month of March, and so antedated events nearly a year: Thus, the year 
l,000, with them begins 25th March, 999. Others began the year in March, and 
yet retarded it three months, reckoning, for example, the space of the year, 1,000, 
preceding 25th of March as belonging to 999. Others began the year the 25th of 
December; others at Easter, and varied its commencement as Easter varied. 
Some who compute from January 1st, still reckon one or two more vears from 
Christ's birth than we do." 

I cite this confusion of dates in early English history, as an apology for those 
New England Societies, which celebrate the ivrong day, viz.. the 22d of De- 
cember. 

Now for the proof that this is not the true day, we must consider the exact 
time which marks the revolution of the earth around the sun. This was the 
earliest element of our planet which was known with accuracy. 

The following are the principle values expressed in mean solar time, showing 
the duration of the tropical year as computed by different astronomers. 



11. c. 


D.A.YS, 


HOURS. 


MIN. 


SEC. 


3101, Indian Tables, 


365 


5 


50 


35 


140. Ptolomy, 


365 


5 


55 


14 


A. D. 










I543> Copernicus 


365 


5 


49 


6 


1602, Tycho Brahe, 


365 


5 


48 


45-3 


1687, Flamsteed, 


365 


5 


48 


57-5 


1806, Delambre, 


365 


5 


48 


51.61 


1853, Hansen & Olufsen, 


365 


5 


48 


46.15 


1858, Leverrier, 


365 


5 


48 


46.045 



The extremes of ihis remarkable series of computations are nearly 5,000 years 
apart ; and yet, the difference in the results, as obtained by the Tiindoo and 
French astronomers is only one minute and 48. 95 5 seconds which practically 
amounts to a coincidence. 

It is probably true, in fact, that for twenty centuries, the length of the year has 
not varied the hundredth part of a second, — evidence of the stability and per- 
petuity of the solar system There can be no variation, except by the earth's loss 
of temperature, and that in the present condition of the jilanet, is an infinitesimal 
quantity. 

The length of the year having been thus determined, we are next to consider in the 
study of our problem two very remarkable calendars, the Julian and the Gregorian. 

Julius CiTesar, who undertook to reform the Calendar, was a great lover of 
astronomy. When in Egypt he met the learned Achoroeus, and said, " I came 



11 

to Egypt to encounter Pompey ; but your renown was not altogetlier foreign to my 
determination. In tlie midst of war, I have always studied the mo\-enients in the 
heavens, the course of the stars, and the secrets of the gods. My arrangement 
of time is at least equal to the Fasti of Eudoxus." Eudoxus lived in the fourth 
century B. C, and was called by Cicero the greatest astronomer that ever lived. He 
determined the length of the year to be 365I: days. Csesar chose Sosigines of 
Alexandria to aid him in reforming the calendar. After a thorough examination 
of the subject, the calculation of Eudoxus was accepted. The Roman year of tliat 
time (B.C. 45) was three months in advance of the real time. He added ninety 
days to this year making it to consist of 455 days, adapting it to the sun's course. 
In order to avoid the inconvenience of a fractional cptantity, he made the tropical 
or natural year 365 days, and every fourth year 366 days. This additional day 
(bis sexta dies) was called the intercalary or bissextile day, and was emiiloyed to 
make the civil year keep pace with tlie tropical ones, and was added between the 
24th and 23d of February which was the 6th of the Calends of March. An thi^, 
day was corrected twice (bis sexto calendas), ihe year itself was called bis sextus or 
bissextile. 

The intercalary day is not now introduced by counting the 23d of February 
twice, but by adding a day at the end of that month, making it twenty-nine days 
long. 

I would call attention to this magnificent acliievement of Ca;sar, Emperor, war- 
rior, statesman and author, he was the busiest of men. Becoming the undisputed 
master of the Roman Empire, he undertook to correct the many evils which had 
crept into the State. The Roman calendar which had always been intrusted to 
the College of Pontiffs who had been accustomed to lengthen or shorten the year 
at their pleasure for political purposes, needed reform, and in honor of his success, 
it was called \.\\e Julian CaUndar^ 

As thus reformed it was used by the civilized world for more than 1600 years, 
when the seasons were again sadly out of order. By adding a day every 
fourth year, too much had been given ; the vernal equinox was running back, 
deranging the order of secular and ecclesiastical festivals which led Pope (Gregory 
XIII, in 15S2, to set about another reform. With the aid of Aloysius I^ilius, a 
physician of Verona, it was undertaken and completed. The equinoxes were 
fallen back ten days and the full moons four days, viz., the former from the 20th of 
March to the loth, and the latter from the stli to the ist of April. Therefore, to 
bring the earth and sun into their true relationship, it was found necessary to add 
ten days to the year 1582. The corrected calendar was immediately adopted by the 
Catholic, but not the Protestant Churches. Tlie error having increased a day, the 
Protestant States of Germany adopted the Gregorian correction in 1700, while 
England was not yet ready for the change. 

It is worthy of remark that this last coriection is not quite perfect. The Julian 
year gains three days, two hours and forty minutes in every four centuries ; and as 
it is only the three days that are kept out in the Gregorian year, there is still an 
excess of two hours and forty minutes in four centuries, which amounts to a whole 
day in thirty-six centuries. 

From our discussion of this subject, it may be be seen how the Gregorian Cal- 
endar can be used. In changing from old to new style, it is the former which 
changes and not the latter. 

If the event occurred previous to the 1st of March, 1700, add ten days to the 
date in old style and it will be corrected for the new. 



12 

If it happened between the last day of February, 1700, and the 1st of March, 
1800, add eleven days. 

If it happened between the same dates in 1800 and 1900, add twelve days, and 
so on, adding one for every intercalary day omitted. 

The reason is obvious, as the year 1600 was leap year, no intercalary day was 
omitted till 1700. Nothing, therefore, was to be added but the ten days omitted 
in 1582. 

From this it is seen that by counting 365I days, the year was made eleven min- 
utes and nine seconds too long. This caused an error of one day too man)' in 
every 134 years. It was also found necessary to strike out three bissextile years in 
every five centuries. Thus the years 1700 and 1800 were not bissextile, nor will 
1900 be ; but the year 2000 will be bissextile. 

Now we are prepared to apply these principles to the question, what is Fore- 
fathers Day? 

The landing of the Pilgrims, as we have said, occurred, Dec. 11 (old style), 
1620. To this date we are required to add ten days, and we get Dec. 21 (new 
style), 1620, as Forefathers' Day. 

Had England or her colonies adopted the new style in the sixteenth or even the 
seventeenth century, no New England Society would have made the blunder of 
celebrating the 22d of December, as Forefathers' Day ! 

Let me illustrate the use of the calendar in its application to the date in 
question. 

Had John Milton recorded the landing of the Pilgrims in old and new styles, 
he would have written December 11-21, 1620. 

Would George Washington, a century later, have been justified in recording 
the same event December 11-22, as the New England Society of New York does? 

Then, Gen. Grant, living a century still later, might with as much propriety 
write it December 11-23 ! and so by parity of reasoning, a few centuries hence, 
the record, not the event for that is fixed, would drop out of December altogether, 
and be found in January ; and so, like the precessi<jn of the equinoxes, it would go 
the round of the circle. 

Again, if I were to write my Russian correspondent in Moscow, on Forefathers' 
Day, which is so near at hand, I would date my letter, Brooklyn, December 9-21, 
1880. Here I give old and new styles, the differenc'e being twelve days, which 
must be added to the old to convert it into the new style. 

The lesson to be drawn from this scrap of history is this, Protestant England 
because of her hatred of the Roman Church did not adopt the new style till 1752 ; 
and for the same reason, Russia and the Greek Church have not, to this day, 
adopted it. Still, as Galileo said, " the earth moves !" The revolutions of the 
planets around their common centre take no heed of the narrow-minded prejudices 
of churches or nations ! They move on in their endless cycles, regardless of the 
rise and fall of empires and tireless in their rythmic dance with the eternities ! 

In conclusion, I cannot forego the opportunity of calling attention to a more 
important festival, in which the entire Christian Church takes an interest. It is a 
well known fact that Christmas day itself, the great festival of the Church, does 
not mark the actual birth-day of its founder ; for that day is absolutely unknown. 
With that systematic disregard of truth, which characterizes the most of the pro- 
ceedings of the early Church, it was pronounced to be the 25th day of December 
simply because it happened to be the principal festival of the worship of Mithras, 



13 

the Persian God of the Sun, as being the day in which the sun entered its winter 
solstice. 

Chrisostom, the Greek Bishop of Alexandria, writes (Homily 31) : " On this 
day (25th December), the birth-day of Christ, was lately fixed (fourth century) at 
Rome in order that whilst the heathen were occupied in their profane ceremonies, 
the Christians might perform their holy rites undisturbed." 

Again, the Romans blundered in their chronology ! Had they taken the true 
solstitial day in honor of Mithras, as they thought they had done, they would have 
celebrated the 21st of December and not the 25th, for that is the day the sun 
enters the winter solstice, in the constellation Capricornus — the shortest day in 
the year — a day of special significance in Persian Mythology. 

The result is obvious, but for the Roman blunder, Christmas and Forefathers' 
Day would have come together and been celebrated by Cavalier and Puritan, on 
the 2ist of December ! (^.Ipp/aiise.) 

On motion, voted that the thanks of the Society are due and are tendered to 
Prof. West for his learned and useful paper, and that he is requested to furnish a 
copy for publication with the annual proceedings of the Society. After some 
remarks by Mr. Winslow and the President relating to the approaching First An- 
nual Festival, the Society adjourned. 

A. E. Lamb, Secretary. 

Note. — At a meeting of the Pilgrim Society held in Plymouth on the 15th day 
of December, 1849, ^ committee of five was appointed, of which the late learned 
Geneologist, Mr. Savage, was Chairman, to investigate and report as to the proper 
day upon which to commemorate the Landing of the Pilgrims. The committee 
made an elaborate report on the 27th day oY May, 1850, by which it appears 
that the 2ist day of December is the correct day, in the judgment of such committee. 
The report was adopted and since that year the Pilgrim Society in Plymouth has com- 
memorated on the day agreed upon by the Committee. It may be added that 
at the First Annual Festival of our Society, on the 2ist day of December, 1880, 
telegrams of greeting were exchanged with the Plymouth Society which was in 
session at the same time for the same purpose. 



Proceedings and Speeches 

AT THE 

FIRST ANNUAL FESTIVAL, 

HELD 

December 2isT, 1880, 

In coiiunzinoratioii of the Two Hundred and Sixtieth Anniversary 
of the Landing of the Pilgrims.- 



The First Annual Festival of the New England Society, in the 
City of Brooklyn, was given in the Assembly Room of the Academy 
of Music, and in the Art Room adjoining, Tuesday evening, Decem- 
ber 2 1 St, 1880. The Art Room was used for the reception of guests, 
and upon its walls were hung many fme paintings then on exhibition 
by the Art Association, which added much to the brilliancy of the 
scene and pleasureof the occasion. The gatheringwasmemorable both 
as regards the large attendance of members comprising many of the 
best citizens of Brooklyn, and presence of distinguished guests. 
The flags of the New England States, the State of New York, and 
the National flag adorned the walls of the dining-room. There w^ere 
eight tables besides that for guests, and every one of the two hun- 
dred and sixty-three seats was occupied. The dinner was provided 
by Delmonico in his best style, and the centre of each table was 
filled with cut flowers. A string band furnished excellent music 
during the dinner. 

Each member wore a satin badge upon which was painted a rep- 
resentation of Plymouth Rock with the date of 1620 thereon, and 
underneath the Arbutus or Mayflower. The new beautiful gold 
badge which was made by Tiffany for the use of the President, was 



10 

worn by that officer. The following is a description of such official 
badge : 

The medal is of gold, two and one-half inches in diameter. In 
the centre of the obverse, in bold relief, is the ship Mayflower, with 
all its characteristic features; the water is carved in platina; in a 
circle surrounding the device is the motto, " In Memoriam Majorum, 
1620. Inc. 1880." And in the outer circle is the title, " New Eng- 
land Society, in the City of Brooklyn." All this lettering is in blue 
enamel. The medal proper hangs from a bar pin, on which is the 
word "President." This is surrounded with an ornament composed 
of the moss rose bud, the emblem of pleasure, the turnip leaf of 
charity, and the arbutus or mayflower, representing New England. 
From all these spring polished gold rays of brightness and glory. 
On the reverse is the inscription, encircled by a wreath of oak and 
laurel, signifying hospitality, strength and success. This inscription 
reads : " Their moral grandeur illuminates their century with a sol- 
emn light which excites awe while it inspires admiration." On the 
edge of the medal are the words: "The President's Badge, First 
Annual Festival, December 21, 1880." 

The reception, which was a very pleasant one, continued in the 
Art Room from six o'clock till nearly seven when the doors of the 
dining-room were thrown open and the guests and members filed in. 
At the guest's table, seated on either side of the President, were, to 
the left. Gen. U. S. Grant, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, Hon. Wm. 
M. Evarts, Secretary of State, Rev. Noah Porter, D.D., President of 
Yale College, Rev. A. P. Putnam, A. A. Low, Esq., Hon. J. M. Van 
Cott, Hon. S. B. Chittenden, M. C, Hon. S. L. Woodford, United 
States District Attorney in New York ; and to the right, Hon. Ruth- 
erford B. Hayes, President of the United States, Gen. W. T. Sher- 
man, U. S. A., Gen. H. W. Slocum, Rev. P. A. Chadbourne, D.D., 
President of Williams College, Joseph Choate, Esq., Rev Edward 
Everett Hale, D.D., Hon. Chauncey M. Depew, Hon. Calvin E. Pratt, 
Judge of the Supreme Court, Hon. Henry C. Murphy, Hon. John 
W. Hunter, ex-Mayor of Brooklyn. 



GRACE. 
BY REV. DR. A. P. PUTNAM. 



Our Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for all Thy mercies, 
and now especially for the occasion that brings us together 
here this evening. 

We bless Thee for the memory of the Pilgrim Fathers. 
May their faith and virtues be more and more enshrined in the 
minds and hearts of their children. 

Grant unto us Thy favor now and here, we beseech Thee. 

Bless our beloved country, and lead us one and all in the 
way of life everlasting, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 



After the removal of the cloth at fifteen minutes before ten 
o'clock, the chairman, (Mr. SiLLIAlAN, President of the Society,) 
arose and called upon Rev. Mr. McLeod to return thanks. 

REV. T. B. McLEOD. 

We return thanks, our Heavenly Father, for this renewed 
manifestation of Thy favor, for this delightful social inter- 
course, and for the delightful memories associated with this 
hour. We pray Thee to bless and sanctify to us all these gifts, 
and accept of us, for Christ's sake. Amen. 



IS 



ADDRESS BY HON. B. D. SILLIMAN, 
President of the Society. 

Gentlemen of the Xei^' England Society : Before propcsing 
the regular toasts, let me congratulate you on the flourishing 
condition and the prospects of the Society, attested by its 
large membership, by the attendance at our late annual meet- 
ing, and by your prompt presence and vigorous action here 
this evening. 

Our association is not limited in its membership to na- 
tives of New England, but includes, also, those who are de- 
scended from New England ancestors, and we all commemo- 
rate with glad hearts, on this, its anniversary, the landing of 
our Pilgrim Fathers. If a New England Society should exist 
and flourish anywhere, it is in our own beautiful city, for in no 
part of New England is there a more pronounced New England 
population than here. Nowhere is there more marked New 
England enterprise, thrift and energy, and nowhere is deeper 
reverence felt for the memory of the Pilgrim Fathers, who 
two hundred and sixty years ago, this day, landed on Plymouth 
Rock. The " Church of the Pilgrims " and " Plymouth Church," 
are among our temples, religious freedom is unquestioned, 
academies and common schools are broadcast, with free educa- 
tion for all. 

Our Puritan ancestors need no vindication or eulogy. His- 
tory has long ago awarded and recorded both. We may well 
regard their career, and its mighty results, with reverence and 
pride. In the words of our xwotto/" T/ieir stern moral grandenr 
illuminates their century zvith a solemn light, lohieh excites azve 
loJiile it inspires admiration." It is the record of history, that 
when they landed at Plymouth, " democratic liberty and inde- 
pendent Christian worship at once existed in America." And 
how has this little leaven leavened the whole lump! 

It would be most interesting, did the time and occasion 
admit (which they do not), to trace how distinctly our political 
principles, and present form of government, were enunciated 
and shaped by the Pilgrims. Before leaving the cabin of the 
Mayflozver, they ordained the first American Constitution. 
They framed, and each man signed, a compact, by which they 
"bound and combined themselves together into a civil body 



19 

politic for their better ordering and preservation, and for the 
enactment of such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, consti- 
tutions and offices, from time to time, as should be most meet 
and convenient for the general good of the colony, unto which 
they promised all due submission and obedience." This, says 
the historian, was the birth of popular constitutional liberty. 
It was the establishment of constitutional government, by 
equal laws, for the general good. It established the principles 
on which the democratic institutions of our country rest. The 
germ of the Union under which we live is found, too, in the 
early confederacy between the colonies of Massachusetts, 
Plymouth, Connecticut and New Haven. In the Union of 
that day were involved questions which perplex in this. 
Among them the troublesome question of "State-rights" then 
arose, each colony under their confederacy reserving to itself 
its own supreme local jurisdiction, and some of them contend- 
ing that the acts of the confederacy should not be binding, 
until ratified by the votes of the people of the respective 
colonies. The members of the confederacy, though very 
unequal in territory and population, each had an equal voice 
and vote in its enactments, just as Rhode Island and Delaware 
have to-day, in the Senate, equal voices and votes with New 
York and Pennsylvania. But the confederacy assured " equal 
and speedy justice to all," and provided for the common action 
and defense, as regarded questions of peace and war. Their 
constitution, like our own, provided for the admission of new 
States, or rather colonies, into their union; but, unlike their 
descendants, they were not only not eager to admit every new 
comer, but rejected several applicants, mainly because of their 
lack of religious orthodoxy. 

The determination of the Pilgrims that the people should 
be educated was a part of their religion. Not only were com- 
mon schools at once established, but within eighteen years 
after the landing of the little colony, — which, when it reached 
Plymouth, consisted of but forty-one men (the whole number 
of men, women, and children, on board the Mayflower being 
but one hundred and one), — within eighteen years after their 
landing in that icy, barren, cheerless, wilderness, Harvard 
College was founded, and so faithful and zealous have the 



20 

people ever since been in its support and endowment, that it is 
said (though I will not exactly vouch for the truth of it), that 
at this da3^ if a man dies in Boston and leaves less than half 
his estate to Harvard College, his will is at once set aside on 
the ground of insanity. {Laughter and applause.) 

The noble establishment of common schools throughout 
New England is her glory. The vast influence which she has 
always wielded over the affairs of this nation has been, and is, 
due far more to her schools, academies and colleges, than to 
her wealth and the number of her people. 

As we all know, wherever the New Englander goes (and 
where does he not go?) he carries New England with him. 
Wherever he is, there are schools, there are academies, col- 
leges and churches. He has swept from Plymouth Rock to 
the Pacific, and has permanently occupied much of the interven- 
ing country. 

There are, in fact, seven (not six as commonly reckoned), 
New England States, and in no one of them is the work of 
the New Englander more marked than here. The great 
city has been built, its commerce conducted, its wealth ac- 
quired, and its intellectual and benevolent institutions sus- 
tained, and endowed, largely by New England enterprise, 
energy, liberality, and intelligence. The sober steadiness, 
the calm wisdom, the quiet industry, of the firm, sincere 
and upright Knickerbocker; the brawny arm and brilliant 
brain of Erin; the clear-headed vigor of our sturdy cousins of 
Caledonia; and the ponderous force of the Teutonic legion 
have co-operated with the Puritans in achieving great results, 
but New York is, therefore, none the less one of the seven 
New England States. You might as well deny to our ambitious 
suburb that lies across the river, the distinction to which it 
aspires of being considered a part of Brooklyn {laughter), as 
to deny that the State is a part of New England. Why, New 
York has ii,86o common schools (a direct legacy from the 
Pilgrim Fathers). Is not that New England ? New York ex- 
pended in 1879 more than $10,000,000 in the maintenance of 
those common schools. Has any other part of New England 
done more? It was the original intention of the Pilgrims to 
plant their colony on the shores of this bay. The Mayflower, 



21 

when she began her voyage, sailed for the mouth of the Hud- 
son. That was her destination, but the ignorance or treachery 
of her navigator took her into Plymouth, and the descendants 
of the Pilgrims, faithful to the purpose of their ancestors, came 
across by land — " across lots " — to the point at which those an- 
cestors aimed, and here have pitched their tents and planted 
their vines and fig trees, and fixed here forever one of the 
New England States. 

Throughout this State New England abides in every hamlet. 
Her axes were busy in leveling the forests, and her ploughs in 
furrowing the fields of the interior counties, where those who 
wielded them, and their children and children's children have 
made their homes. Her men, her principles, her ideas, her 
usages, prevail mainly throughout the State. The history, the 
legislation, the policy, the institutions of the State — all bear 
the impress of New England. A large portion of the gov- 
ernors, the judges, the legislators, the statesmen of New 
York, of her members of congress, her senators, have been 
natives and descendants of natives of other States of New 
England. The Eastern half of Long Island was represented 
for years in the legislature at Hartford. New York is part 
of New England by inception, by adoption, by accretion, by 
occupation, by absorption, by amalgamation, by overflow. 

It is a goodly heritage, but the sons of the Pilgrims go 
forth from it as from other parts of New England in search 
of new worlds to conquer. So long as any wilderness re- 
mains unsubdued, any region unexplored, any bargain not 
made, any profit not reaped, any project unaccomplished, 
any controversy — whether metaphysical, ethical, philosophical, 
religious, or political — not settled, the restless descendants 
of the Pilgrims will not deem their mission ended. They 
are ever pressing forward, pushing on against all obstacles, 
and pushing the stronger and harder, and with the greater 
determination the thicker and more formidable the ob- 
stacles they encounter, just as, not long ago, one of them 
ordered his lieutenant to "push things" at Appomatox {ap- 
plause) ; and as another descendant of the Pilgrims, about the 
same time, pushed through the darkness from the mountains to 
the sea {applause); and as another New Englander, one of our 



22 

townsmen, who is present with us to-night, * led one of the 
cohnnns of the army, and another New Englander f led the 
other on that grand promenade. {Applajisc.) 

Gentlemen, "blood will tell," and it has told, and is telling 
everywhere throughout the great and growing West, which is 
so largely, and in many regions mainly, populated by the 
descendants of the Puritans. The question is often asked 
nowadays : How is it that Ohio produces so many great men — 
presidents, judges, generals, statesmen, and ambassadors? 
Trace their pedigree, and you have the answer. [Applause.) 

I know that our friends who are present with us this evening, 
and who are not natives, or descendants of New England, may 
accuse me of undue humility in the very moderate and guarded 
terms of praise in which I have spoken of the Pilgrims and their 
sons. {Laug/itc?-.) I plead guilty to the charge. But I am detain- 
ing you from the intellectual feast which is before us this evening, 
and will close with simply saying that each one of us inherited 
from our Pilgrim ancestors the duty of vigilantly protecting, ex- 
tending and perpetuating, each by his voice, his vote, and his life 
if need be, the religious, political, and personal freedom which 
they bequeathed to us. {Applause}) 



The Chainuaii. — Gentlemen, we are honored this evening by 
the presence of an illustrious descendant of New England, the 
Chief Magistrate of the Nation. {Cheers.) He is about retiring 
from his high position, with the respect, admiration, and the 
gratitude of the people for the great wisdom, the pure pur- 
pose, the steady will, and the unwavering firmness with which 
he has administered the government, preserved its honor, and 
secured its prosperity. {Louei Cheers.) I propose to you, as our 
first toast, 

"The President of the United States." 

The audience rising, this toast was received with loud and 
continuous cheers, which were long repeated, when PRESIDENT 
Hayes rose to reply. 

* Major General Slocurn. f Major General Howard. 



23 
SPEECH OF PRESIDENT HAYES. 

Mr. Chairman aiid Gentlemen : We have often heard, we 
often hear, the phrase " New England ideas." It is said, and I 
think said truly, that these ideas have a large and growing 
influence in shaping the affairs of the people of the United 
States. It is not meant, I suppose, that the principles referred 
to in this phrase, are peculiar to New England, but merely that 
in New England they are generally accepted, and that perhaps 
there they had their first practical illustration. These ideas, 
these principles generally termed New England ideas, and New 
England principles, it seems to me have had much to do with 
that prosperity which we are now enjoying, and about which 
we are perhaps apt to be too boastful, but for which it is cer- 
tain we cannot be too grateful. {Applause.) 

The subject, New England ideas, is altogether too large a one 
for me, or anybody, to discuss this evening. If it was to be done 
at length, in protracted speaking, we have our friends here able, 
and with a reputation for capacity in that way. Our friend Mr. 
Evarts, for example {applause), Mr. Beecher {applause), and I 
am confident that I shall be excused for naming in this connection, 
above all, our friend General Grant. [Loud applause.) 

Leaving then to them the discussion of the larger topic, I 
must content myself with the humbler duty of merely naming 
the New England ideas to which I refer. 

New England believes that every man and woman, under the 
law ought to have an equal chance and an equal hope with every 
other man and woman {applause), and believes that in a country 
where that is secured individuals and society will have their 
highest development and the largest allotment of human happi- 
ness. {Applause.) New England believes that equal rights 
can be best secured in a country where every child is provided 
freely with the means of education. {Applause.) New England 
believes that the road — -the only road, the sure road — to unques- 
tioned credit and a sound financial condition is the exact and 
punctual fulfilment of every pecuniary obligation, public and 
private {applause), according to its letter and spirit. {Applause.) 
New England believes in the home, and in the virtues that 
make home happy {eries of ''good"), and New England will 
tolerate, so far as depends on her, no institutions and no practices 
in any state or territory which are inconsistent with the sacred- 



24 

ness of the family relation. {Cries of ''good' \) New England 
cherishes the sentiment of nationality and believes in a general 
government strong enough to maintain its authority, to enforce 
the laws and to preserve and to perpetuate the Union. {Ap- 
plause.) 

Now, with these New England ideas everywhere accepted 
and prevailing — to repeat, with just and equal laws, administered 
under the watchful eyes of educated voters ; with honesty in 
all moneyed transactions ; with the New England home and 
the New England family as the foundation of society ; with 
national sentiments prevailing everywhere in the country; we 
shall not lack that remaining crowning merit of New England 
life which lends to every peopled landscape its chief interest 
and glory, the spires pointing heavenward that tell to every 
man who sees them that the descendants of the Pilgrims still 
hold to and cherish, and love that which brought their fathers 
to this continent, which they here sought and here found — 
freedom to worship God. {Long continued applause^ 

A voice: "Three cheers for President Hayes," zvhich were 
given and prolonged with a %vill. 



The Chairman. —We honor, and warmly welcome another 
descendant of the Pilgrims, who is known and honored of all 
men and all nations. Words cannot add to the eulogy which 
mankind has pronounced. Let me propose, 

"A Welcome to General Grant." — {Great applause.) 

General Grant, on rising to address the company was greeted 
with vehement, and long protracted cheering and applause. 

speech of gen'l u. s. grant. 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Neiv England Society of 
Brooklyn : I am afraid that you are doomed to a good deal of 
disappointment. In one particular, however, you will not be 
disappointed; and that is, I shall not detain you long. We 
have heard from your President, also from the President of the 



25 

United States, some eulogies paid to the descendants of the 
Pilgrims, and to the people of New England. I subscribe to 
all that the President has said, and would say a little more. We 
have heard a great deal in our country, in the last fifteen years, 
about "the carpet-baggers," and the term "carpet-baggers," 
has become almost a word of reproach. The New Englander 
believes that when he is a citizen of one State, he is a citizen of 
the United States, and has the right to go to any portion of the 
country to be a citizen there, with all the rights he had at the 
place of starting. {Chccjs.) In our Northern States, and par- 
ticularly in North-western States, we have seen the effects of 
carpet-bagism — the best effects of carpet-bagism — where they 
have been received as fully equal to a native born citizen. We 
have seen growing cities that have sprung up in the lifetime of 
the youngest in this audience ; we have seen prosperity brought 
from the prairie where nothing stood but what nature had 
planted there. It has been the work of the carpet-bagger, and 
the principles of the people who form this society have done it. 
{Applause.) Without reflecting upon any section of the country, 
I would say that, in my judgment, there would have been very 
much greater prosperity in some portions of it, besides much 
greater contentment, if the carpet-bagger had been received in 
the same way he was in the North-west. {Applause.) In fact, 
I have almost come to the conclusion, that there is but very 
little progress or advancement in a community made up entirely 
of the natives of that community (applause) ; that it requires a 
little stirring up, a little going away, a little going abroad- 
going from the place of one's nativity — to bring out one's best 
energies. You may take this city, you may take the suburbs 
across the East River {laughter) or elsewhere, wherever you like, 
and while you may find very excellent representatives there of 
the sires of the men who continue their business faithfully and 
successfully, yet you find hardly any thing that is new in the 
way of enterprise that is not started by some one who has come 
among you. So I am decidedly in favor of the principles of New 
England; go where you please, obey the laws wherever you go, 
respects the rights of others; being free, leave others free like- 
wise to enjoy their own political and religious views and make 
no distinction on account of a person's nativity. {Cheering.) 
Your President here this evening asked one connundrum which 



2G 

I shall not be able to answer: he said something about where 
the descendants of the Pilgrims went, and where didn't they 
go ? That I give up. {LaiigJiter^ My travels have been con- 
fined to the Northern Hemisphere, I have not gone south of 
the Equator, but to it; and up to the sixty-first or sixty-second 
degree of north latitude and I have not found the place where 
he has not been. If your President wants a solution to this 
question he must send for Stanley; he is probably the only 
man who can answer it. {Laughter.) I leave it to him. 
Gentlemen I am very much obliged to you. 

General Grant took his seat amid long and continued 
cheering-. 



On announcing the third toast : 

" The Pilgrim Fathers," 

The Chairman said: " Who can so well respond to this toast as 
our own distinguished fellow citizen who, had he been one of 
the Pilgrim Fathers, would have been first and foremost in 
their great work ; whose wisdom would have excelled that of 
Carver, his orthodoxy that of Robinson, and his military zeal, 
skill, and prowess, those of Miles Standish.' I call on the Rev. 
Mr. Beecher." 

Mr. Beecher was received with cheers and hearty ap- 
plause. 

SPEECH OF REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Gentlemen : The theme that I am asked to speak to is a 
great deal larger than you have time to hear unfolded. Our 
Pilgrim Fathers cannot be discussed really and fully without 
having some general reference to the unfolding of the human 
race itself. {Applause.) They were not a seam in the volcanic 
country, shut up between the walls of the rock, a vein of gold 
and a vein of silver; their coming on to the stage marks a dis- 
tinct geological epoch — not a convulsion, but a great transition. 
The world had been slumbering for a great many hundred 



27 

years, or swooning in ignorance and superstition ; the arts were 
lost, learning was lost and mankind was substantially lost. 
Then came a general revival which is called the Renaissance. 
To that general movement of the whole human race within the 
bounds of Christendom the Puritan belongs. The develop- 
ment of new life and intellectual force took place among the 
Latin nations after the manner of the Greek ; the development 
of men toward intellectual activity took place in the Germanic 
and the English people after the Semitic type. There was no- 
where else more development or more marked activity than in 
the court at Rome and in the great Italian cities, and it fol- 
lowed the line of art, of elegant letters, of literature, of philoso- 
phy, of music, of architecture, of painting, of sculpture, but not 
of manhood. North, the development took on the old Israel- 
itish type : it went in the direction of a larger manhood. In 
the South they built outside of men ; in the North inside of 
men. {Applause.) And to this great movement the Puritans 
belonged ; and upon them have come not all the credit, but 
nearly all the discredit of the inconvenience which took place in 
the pushing up of this new development in the history of time. 
Now, the centre of the movement that resulted in Puritanism 
was an utter contempt for the low state of humanity in them- 
selves and around about them. The radical idea of Puritanism 
was that men were not large enough, and in the attempt to 
make them larger they found themselves hindered by the 
church, hindered by philosophy, hindered by government, hin- 
dered by prejudice and by ignorance. The Puritan was thrown, 
therefore, in the very beginning, into the attitude in some 
respects, of attack for the sake of self-defense ; for every at- 
tempt to make himself a larger man and a stronger man and a 
freer man was met with buffet and even with persecution, unto 
death oftentimes. Nevertheless, this was the purpose— a purer, 
a deeper, a stronger, a nobler manhood. That was the radical 
idea. It differed in this respect from the attempt at manhood 
that was going on contemporaneously. There was many a 
noble man hid in caves, trying to overcome sin by living alone ; 
but any man that sleeps with himself has the devil all the time 
for his'bedfellow. {Laughter and applause.) There were saintly 
women in convents and nunneries ; there were many contem- 
plative men that sought a better and a higher life. The Puri- 



28 

tan stands apart from all these in this — that he meant to be a 
larger and a stronger man, under God's own heaven, and out 
in the fields and wherever man did live. He did not mean to 
retreat in order to find a home where he might, like a worm, 
bury himself and hatch out he knew not when or how after- 
ward. He meant to be a man among men ; and he coupled 
his own determination to have a larger personal development 
with the old Semitic feeling that he must have had in common 
with his kind. He did not mean to go up without carrying 
somebody up with him. {Applause.) It is impossible for us to 
go back in imagination, impossible to see how populous the 
whole world was with influences malign and venomous even. 
You must recollect that the princes of power of the air had 
perfect supremacy at this time in the imaginations of men. 
The heavens were full of sprites and of demons and of witches. 
Storms and pestilences all were of the devil's make. Natural law 
was not unfolded. Everything was supernatural, everything 
had been prepossessed, everything had been stamped with the 
signet of superstition, everything was under priestly or under 
royal hands, and these men had to wake up through all this 
cloud of darkness and through all these prepossessions to relay 
the foundation of character and to relay it not alone for one's 
self, and for one's household, and for one's neighborhood, but 
for the commonwealth. They joined themselves to their fellow 
men and determined that they would not go up without carry- 
ing up with them their times and their generations. {Applause}^ 
Now, it is said that these men were a harsh and a rude kind of 
men. Gentlemen, feathers do very well when you want to 
decorate beauty ; but when men want to extract gold from out 
of rocks, feathers do not make good chisels nor good tools to 
work with. [Applause.) Any men that were not stern and 
hard could never have taken one single step up in the ages in 
which these men lived. And yet they were not pugnacious. 
They were like New Englanders since. They never raised a 
fight, but they never left it until they had it as they wanted it. 
I admit that they broke painted windows ; I admit that they 
smashed statues — but how did they find the world ? All art 
had been suborned, architecture had been impressed into the 
service of the hierarchy and of the Emperor, the imperial gov- 
ernments. There was scarcely a thing in the early Christian 



20 

life that had not been impressed into the service of idolatry. 
Every tree, every vine, every ilower had some relation to a 
deity or to some sprite, and the early Christians had to be icono- 
clasts at such time as that. The same thing took place in the 
Puritan age. They found all the avenues of enjoyment stuffed 
full of associations of superstition, belittling, degrading the 
mind ; and the Puritans, to get rid of them, did as men do who 
have been in too familiar intercourse with some of the animals 
that prowl in the night and go back with odorous garments. 
{Laughter^ There is no use brushing them, gentlemen ; there 
is no use of putting cologne on them. {Laughter) You have 
got to bury them {laughter), and the Puritan judged — and 
judged rightly — in respect to a thousand things that in them- 
selves we have learned are innocent, but that were not inno- 
cent to them. Great fault has been found ; they had so much 
to say about the habiliments of the church. What difference 
does it make what toggery garments {laughter) is worn ; 
whether men have this or that ceremonial ? Well, what differ- 
ence does it make whether men wear butternut clothes or 
whether they wear blue ? There was a time when it made a 
good deal of difference with us — butternut meant one thing 
and blue meant another thing. What is the difference between 
two pieces of bunting? One of them carries the Cross of St. 
George in a sea of blood, and the other carries the Stripes and 
the Stars as in the firmament. They are both of them very 
good in their way, but I think we like ours a little the better. 
Now the whole air had been perfumed with the incense of the 
Church of Rome. There was almost nothing in society that 
had not been stamped with the impress of the cross — not what 
we mean by the cross, but what was meant by superstition, by 
the cross ; and therefore, when the Puritan refused to dance in 
his time, I would not have danced. {Laughter and applause) 
When he refused to worship in a church that had painted 
windows neither would I if every single color of the window 
produced a lie on my eyes as upon my imagination. They 
broke statues. I wish they had broken fewer, or, rather, had 
hidden them. Nevertheless, if I had lived in that day I would 
have hammered them. {Applause.) In other words, when men 
are striving to emancipate themselves from ignorance and 
superstition they have a right to hit anything that stands in 



30 

their way in order that they may get out. {App/atise.) Why, 
kings said : " If you common people will not meddle with 
politics and will let us have our way, we will fiddle and you may 
dance; and we will give you holidays and we will give you all 
sorts of cake and wine and you shall have a good time." They 
bribed their belly for the sake of impoverishing their heads ; 
and the Puritans did not like it and would not have to do with 
either of them. When the)- came to this country they brought 
themselves with themselves. [Applause.) They came to New 
England for the purpose of being larger men. They came 
from persecution, it is said, to persecution. I beg your pardon. 
They came from persecution to make some mistakes on that 
subject. But suppose men have been surrounded in Indian 
warfare for weeks and for months by outlying adversaries and 
know not but that behind every bush or tree there might lurk 
the death of their children or their wives — suppose in this state 
of perpetual fear they see men drawing near to them meaning 
to take their lives, are they very much to be blamed if they 
shut the door and put their rifle in rest ? And suppose they 
turn out to be harmless, are they at the alarm to be criticized 
and to be blamed ? When they came to this country they 
came from a land of superstition and where all men that differed 
with them were supposed to be their adversaries, and they acted 
in self-defense in New England. Their persecutions were com- 
paratively limited and they were perfectly natural under the 
circumstances of men whose minds were alarmed at possible 
danger to their life and to that which was more precious than 
life — the truth, of which they were the guardians. It is said 
they hung the witches. Gentlemen, in one city a thousand 
men were executed in a single year in Europe for witchcraft. 
New England had the last drops of a shower which had been 
in Europe a deluge. There were more than two, three, four, 
five thousand people that had lost their lives in the preceding 
year in Europe under the charge of witchcraft. And when our 
ancestors came to New England they had not rid themselves of 
the idea that there was such a thing as witchcraft. They have 
refined it — they discharged black witchcraft. All our witches 
now are most welcome to us. They are in our houses, they are 
in our homes. We submit to the witchery and sorcery of 
beauty and of loveliness. Our fathers thought they were the 



31 

devil's own children {JaugJittr) and that they should under that 
influence that pervaded the whole civilized world have hung a 
few is not at all strange. {Laughter.) The great mistake in 
hanging is the want of proper selection. {Laughter.) Nothing 
more wholesome, nothing more sanitary. I am opposed to 
capital punishment on account of its indiscriminacy. {Laughter.) 
Well, when they came to New England they were founding 
commonwealths, but they were founding commonwealths for a 
purpose of whicli they themselves had no conception — which 
has really developed itself in our day ; for it seems to me as if 
God had picked out the hardest place on the globe — New Eng- 
land. All that territory clear up through Nova Scotia, clear up 
to Quebec, all that region by nature sterile, with an uncom- 
promising winter, with a short, penurious summer, with a thin 
soil — God put these sturdy Puritans there and said : " Now see 
what men inspired by liberty and by God can do." And 
they have shown the world what they can do. {Applause.) 
There was not a boy that was born to the Puritans that did not 
understand the moment that he got out of the cradle that he 
had got to go to work and earn a living. There is not a river in 
New England that does not understand that it has got to go 
to work and earn a living before it has emptied into the sea. 
{Applause.) They have impressed themselves upon nature as 
well as upon men, and have transformed New England and 
made it to-day, as it were, a garden almost originally from their 
hands, for when it came from the hand of God it was rock with 
intervals of sand. {Applause.) Now it is full of all beauty, all 
fruitfulness, all joy and sweetness. At this time it pleased God 
also, to set apart the best part of this continent and put it in 
the hands of men that did not believe in equality, but did be- 
lieve in servitude. And the States of the South, washed by 
the Gulf, caressed by the sun of the equator — all this most 
fruitful territory was given into the anti-Puritan hands — men 
that did not believe in universal manhood and universal liberty, 
and the years have rolled on, and I stand to-day and say : 
What is the result in the South, and what is the result in the 
North ? This Puritanism of New England and this anti-Puri- 
tanism throughout the South? New England builded better 
than they, and have spread themselves through posterity. 
You may say what you please, gentlemen, New England is a 



32 

very small territory, but a very populous one. The blessing of 
God has fallen on that part of our country. It is not a bless- 
ing either that goes to those already too rich. The poorer a 
man is in New England the larger his family is {laughter), and 
none are equal to clergymen's families {renezved laughter), and 
they are sent forth into all the land, carrying New England with 
them, carrying the type of New England manhood with them ; 
and wherever throughout the West, beginning at the old 
Mason and Dixon's line, carrying it clear through to the Atlan- 
tic Ocean — wherever you will find schools you will find Yankees 
— wherever you will find banks well conducted you will find 
Yankees — wherever you will find railroads that are paying divi- 
dends and do not water their stock you will find Yankees — 
wherever you will find institutions that imply regularity, accur- 
acy, steadfastness, you will find Yankees. If not Yankees that 
are presidents or managers then they married Yankee wives 
{laughter and applause) ; for I say of the men of the South and 
West that they know a good thing when they see it. {Laughter.) 
We tried to send out — we formed an association to send out — 
Yankee schoolmistresses, but they took them off our hands 
faster than we could get them out there; but they very soon 
opened their own schoolhouses and supplied their own scholars. 
{Great laughter.) While we are uttering laudations of our an- 
cestors, it is not because they were our ancestors, although in 
that matter I think we have something. I do not know but 
the strongest thing I could say to-night in praise of the Puri- 
tans is: "See their posterity; what sort of men they must 
have been to have been the fathers of such fellows as we are." 
{Laughter) But I am not setting out a sectional view, nor a nar- 
row and partisan view. I am simply saying in that great upheaval 
which in some directions developed in art and some in philoso. 
phy and elegant literature, part of it was the development of a 
nobler idea of humanity, and that our fathers and the Puritans 
were the men whom God employed in that great work ; and 
since their day not only in this land but now reflexly from this 
land upon Europe again, the Puritan ideas with their unfold- 
ings have controlled the world more than either Greece or 
Rome ever controlled it — the one by its institutions and the other 
by its philosophy. And the work has but just begun ; so, then, 
if you build a monument to the memory of Puritans, gentle- 



33 

men, I think you might well adopt the inscription that is found 
upon the tomb of Sir Christopher Wren, the great architect of 
London : "Si qucris vioiiuuientuju circiDiispicc ! " If you want 
to see the memorial and the monument of the Puritans look 
at the Atlantic Ocean on the East clear across the continent 
to the Pacific Ocean on the West. Behold this continent. 
That is it. {Great applause.) 



The Chairuian. — Gentlemen : the next regular toast — the 
fourth — is : 

"The Clergy — Honored by our Ancestors, — 
Honored by Us." 

The distinguished President of Yale College, Dr. Porter, is 
with us this evening. His great wisdom and exalted character 
have added to the fame and usefulness of the grand old Univer- 
sity over which he has so long presided. We ask him to respond 
to the toast in honor of the order of which he is so eminent a 
member. I beg to introduce the REVEREND PRESIDENT PORTER. 

SPEECH OF PRESIDENT PORTER. 

Mr. Cliairinaii and Gentieinen: My friend. Rev. Mr. Beecher, 
has so completely pVe-occupied the ground assigned to me that 
I hardly know what to add to the remarks which he has offered. 
I might indeed make a short digression into what he and I so 
well know as the inner life of the Clergyman's household in New 
England. I might also give a brief summary of recollections 
from my childhood up as to what the Clergy of New England 
were as I have known them, in the varied relations in which I 
have been acquainted with them from infancy. But such a 
picture would hardly be appropriate to this occasion, and cer- 
tainly I shall not occupy your time long enough to half portray 
it even in incomplete outlines 

The President of the United States has, with singular com 
prehensiveness and felicity, characterized what he conceives to 
be New England ideas. I can add nothing to the catalogue 
which he has given, and certainly I shall not presume to repeat 



34 

the thoughts which he has so eloquently and so concisely 
expressed. 

Let me call to your minds however the simple truth, that 
what New England has been from the first it has owed mainly 
to its clergy. {Applause.) The beautiful vision which is now 
being so gloriously turned into fact, once lay distinct before a 
few meditative minds called to the service of the gospel and 
ready to die for their faith. New England in its characteristic 
features was the outgrowth of the Puritan party — and the Puri- 
tan party was in an important sense, born in Emmanuel College 
in Cambridge. The Puritan party came into being in that college 
in the minds of a few believers in God, in Christ, in the ad- 
vancement of his Kingdom, and the possibilities of what that 
Kingdom might become, wherever a free scope could be found 
for its development and ample room for the manifestation of 
those possiblities. 

New England was planted by the Clergy. The Clergy, from 
the first, were her prophets and priests and were trusted and 
honored as leaders anointed and guided of God. They were 
remarkable, first of all, for the fervor of their piety, but we claim 
no pre-eminence in this respect for the Clergy of New England 
above the Clergy of old England, or of Germany, or over many 
a saintly servant at the altars of the Church of Rome. Neither 
piety, nor fervor in piety, are limited to us in New England, both 
are as broad and pervasive as the Gospel itself. The Clergy 
of New England not only believed in God — but in bold and 
comprehensive application of Christian truth, and Christian 
principles, to all the exigencies of human life, in a word in the 
formation of a perfect society on the earth which should be 
worthy to be called the Kingdom of God. They came to New 
England, when driven out from old England, first under stress 
of necessity ; but when they found themselves here they rejoiced 
to find within the bounds of New England a free land, within 
which they might realize the glorious ideal of a free church in a 
truly Christian commonwealth. Their dreams have, in a great 
measure, come to pass. What is a reality now was in their 
minds first a dream, then a faith, a hope, a prophecy, to their 
ardent souls. 

Those who landed first at Plymouth Rock, were a few 
scattered refugees. But they were headed by their Clergy, and 



35 

the Clergy gave the law to the infant colony. The Massachu- 
setts colony followed, and soon from this strong and organized 
commonwealth, there went forth another colony to take its 
seat on the banks of the Connecticut, Of this colony Thomas 
Hooker led the van, and by his wisdom and discretion he 
inspired and directed his confiding followers. John Davenport, 
another Clergyman, led another colony to New Haven to 
triumph over the trials and dif^culties of the wilderness; and 
to make real his vision of a still more perfect state. And 
Roger Williams gathered another colony after his fashion, and 
was the inspiring genius of Rhode Island. Thus New England 
began to be. 

Now, what did New England Clergy believe in? They 
believed first in freedom to form one's religious opinions freshly 
from the Word of God. They believed not only in the right 
but in the duty of searching the Scriptures and finding and 
vindicating Christian truth, by a fresh study of the Word. 
They exalted once for all God's revealed Word above all 
human interpretations and all human symbols. From Edwards 
to Channing, and even to Theodore Parker, that same great 
principle has been held and exemplified by the Clergy of New 
England, and by all who sympathize with them in this free 
thinking land of ours. And how much has been gained as a 
consequence to theological science, how much light has been 
thrown upon the Word of God, how many new and improved 
views of the Christian life have followed, I need not stop to 
explain. But whatever has been gained has been owing not 
only to what the Clergy of New England have dared to do but 
what they have felt bound to do from Edwards to this day. 
{Applause.) Nor have they been less conspicuous in the appli- 
cation of Christian truth to all human exigencies and human 
duties. Believing in the duty of searching the Scriptures they 
believed that every man should be educated so that he might 
understand the preacher's expositions and in their light might 
study the Word of God for himself. And hence they founded 
the school as an essential doorway to the Kingdom of God. 
Out of schools came academies, and out of academies came 
colleges, and from the earliest to the present time our Clergy 
of New England have been the foster fathers of that school 
system of New England, which has spread over a very con- 
3 



36 

siderable portion of this land. They fitted students for college 
in many a quiet village, and many a man who has risen to emi- 
nence at the bar, or on the bench, or in enterprises of any kind, 
or has gained wealth and honor in the country has owed it to 
his New England pastor. Out of their scanty incomes they 
have given liberally to the cause of education and founded 
colleges. Let me cite an instance. When the first serious 
effort was made to obtain the first considerable subscription 
ever made to the college with which I had the honor to be 
connected in 1831, a subscription which amounted to $100,000, 
the decisive circumstance that led to the undertaking 
which w^as crowned with success, was that a country pas- 
tor in the State of Connecticut with but a scanty patrimony 
and no children was willing to give $500. That subscription 
secured the $100,000 to the college. If I were to tell you what 
I know about the self-denying efforts of country ministers, in 
New England, living on scanty salaries, for the schools and 
colleges, some of you would lift up your hands in astonishment. 
It is literally true that had it not been for the Clergy of New 
England there would not be a single college or university in 
the United States worth talking of. But for the fostering care 
of the Clergy of New^ England, we should have nothing in the 
form of higher education that would be worth speaking of. 

Then again they believed in emigration. The first colony 
that Governor Winthrop brought over settled in Charlestown. 
The next thing they did was to discover that there was a fine 
spring on the Boston side of the Charles River, and immediately 
Governor Winthrop bought the spring and the peninsula for 
i^35 sterling, and at once moved over to Boston. Their 
descendants have been moving ever since, and the Clergy have 
eone with, or after them, to Litchfield county in Connecticut, 
Berkshire county in Massachusetts, then to Vermont, then to 
central New York — -as soon as they could get beyond the Dutch- 
men on the Mohawk— these were settled by New England 
pastors and their New England flocks ; and they went on until 
New England emigration has filled and glorified much of this 
great land of ours. 

There is nothing I like so well to do, as when I find a newly 
arrived Englishman, who supposes he knows everything, to 
open the map of the United States, and spread it out before 



37 

him, and ask him if he knows anything about the history of 
our internal emigration and immigration. When I draw the 
hues from these New England centers hither and thither on 
this map, it seems as if I was weaving a veritable cloth of gold. 
Wherever these lines are drawn it seems as if the spirit of the 
living- God went with our forefathers, for we know that they 
were sustained by the Clergy of New England. Perhaps I 
ought to bear in mind when I say all this that I am one of 
this body, but I may excuse myself when I add that my father 
was one of them before me, and for sixty years he discharged 
one pastorate, in one New England town, one shepherd over 
one flock ; and the old meeting house in which he officiated 
still now stands, i lo years old, and the shingles have never 
been replaced, having been laid of solid cedar from the first. 
I have good reason to know what one New England Clergyman 
could do for mankind. 

Let me sa)' a word on the last part of our theme : "Honored 
by us." Let me urge that the Clergy of New England ought 
to be honored by us more than they are. Perhaps sometimes 
when we undertake to sit in judgment upon their austere 
theology and rigid ideas, that we do not alwa)'s judge them 
justly or fairly. Did we apply the true historic spirit and judge 
of their doctrines from their point of view, we should find less 
reason to criticise them than we do. And I advise my brother 
Beecher instead of criticising the extinct fatalisms of the creeds 
that are no longer held, to turn his attention to the fatalism 
that now exists — to the Atheism that, knowing no God, locks 
man and his destiny in the bonds of iron fate ; denying to him 
immortality and all he loves and hopes for in another life. The 
fatalism of our fathers, if they were fatalists, was certainly 
modified and mellowed by the gentle beauty and affectionate 
self-denial of their lives, and the theology of our fathers as it 
was uttered at the bedside of the dying, and as it diffuses its 
genial light through all the avenues of human society, was not 
so dreadful a thing as they understood it, as we are so often led 
to imagine. 

Let us honor, then, the Clergy of New England, not with 
superstitious reverence, but with enlightened judgment and 
generous and tolerant spirit. {Applause}) 



38 

TJic CJiairvian. — Gentlemen the next toast is, 

"The Republic and its Outlook." 

He may well speak of the "out-look" who is on the watch- 
tower. His brethren of the bar would prefer his remaining 
here, but if he ivill return to the competitions and collisions of 
the courts, he will be welcomed as a brother, however unwel- 
come he may be as an adversary. Meantime that he may tell 
us of " the outlook of the Republic," let us listen to the 
Secretary of State — the Honorable WiLLlAM M. EVARTS. 

Mr. Evarts received a warm greeting. 



SPEECH OF PION. WM. M. EVARTS. 

Ml'. President (Did Gciitlciiicii of the Nczv Ejigland Society of 
Brooklyn : I have been accustomed to the City of New York, 
and have been accustomed to the estimate which the people of 
New York make of the people of Brooklyn. {Laughter.) I 
now come to make some trial of the estimate which the peo- 
ple of Brooklyn put upon the people of New York. {Applause.) 
In one distinct feature of the City of New York — I mean in its 
population — and in one distinct feature of the City of Brook- 
lyn — in its population — you will see the secret of your vast 
superiority to us. {Laughter.) In the City of New York 
there are more Irishmen than there are in Dublin. {Applause.) 
In the City of Brooklyn there are more Bostonians than there 
are in Boston. {LaugJiter^) We have always felt it as a re- 
proach, however little we relish the satire, that our New Eng- 
land festivals — I mean in New York — were little in keeping 
with the po\'ert\^ and frugality, and perhaps with the virtues 
of our ancestors. But here I see exactly such a company, and 
exactly such a feast as in the first years of the emigration, our 
ancestors would ha\'e sat down to. {Laughter.) We honor 
our fathers with loud praises, you, by noble and self-denying 
example. {Laughter.) 

The Republic, which is the theme I am to speak to, is the 
Republic which has grown from the seed that was planted in 



59 

New England. It has gained as the oak has gained in its 
growth, from the soil, and from the air ; so in the body and the 
strength, and the numbers, and the wealth of the Republic, it 
has gained by the accretions of other races, and the incoming 
population from many shores. But the oak, nevertheless, is an 
oak, because the seed which was planted was the seed of an 
oak. {Loud Applause.) Now, our Pilgrim Fathers seem to 
have been frustrated by Providence a good deal, in many of 
their plans. They came with the purpose, it is said, of occu- 
pying the pleasant seat of all this wealth and prosperity which 
these great cities enjoy. But the point was to plant them in 
New England, where they might grow, but would never stay. 
One of the first letters which I received after taking chargfe of 
the Department over which I preside, was an extremely well 
written one from a Western State, asking for a Consulate, and 
beginning in this wise : " I have no excuse for intruding on 
your busy occupations except a pardonable desire to live else- 
where." [Laughter.) Now that has been the main-spring of 
New Englanders ever since they were seated by Providence on 
its barren shores, a pardonable desire to live elsewhere. 
{Laughter.) If they had been planted here — if they had been 
seated in the luxurious climate and with the fertile soil of the 
South, they would have had no desire, pardonable or other- 
wise, to live elsewhere. Though the}' might have grown and 
lived they never would have proved the seed that was to make 
the Great Republic as it now is. (Applause.) There has been 
an idea that some part of the active, spreading and increasing 
influence of the New England people as they moved about 
the world, was from a meddlesome disposition to interfere with 
other people. There is nothing in that. If there ever was a 
race that confined itself strictl}- to minding its own business, 
it is the New Englanders; and they mind it, with great results. 
The solution of this apparent discord is simply this: that a 
New Englander considers everybody else's business his busi- 
ness. {Loud Laughter.) Now these two essential notions of 
wishing to live elsewhere, and regarding everybody else's busi- 
ness as our business, furnish the explanation of the pro- 
cesses by which this Republic has come to be what it is — 
great in every form of power, of strength, of wealth. This 
dissemination of New England men, and this permeation 



40 

through other people's business — of our control of it — have 
made the nation \\hat it is. [Applause.) 

The statesmanship of the New England character, was the 
greatest statesmanship of the world. It did not undertake to 
govern by authority, or by power, but by those ideas and 
methods which were common to human nature, and were to 
make a people great, and able to govern themselves. {Ap- 
plause.) The great elements of that state thus developed, 
were education, industry and commerce. Education which, 
as Aristotle says, " makes one do by choice what others do by 
force ;" industry, which by occupying and satisfying all the 
avidities of our nature, leaves to government only, the simple 
duty of curbing the vicious and punishing the wicked. Com- 
merce, that, by unfolding to the world the relations of people 
with people, makes a system of foreign relations that is greater 
and firmer, and more beneficent, than can be brought about 
by all the powers of armies, or all the skill of cabinets. {Ap- 
plause.) 

This being then, the Republic which has grown up from 
the seed thus planted, that has established our relations among 
ourselves over our wide heritage, and established our relations 
with the rest of the world, what is its outlook to-day ? What 
is it in the sense of material prosperity ? Who can measure 
it? Who can circumscribe it? Who can, except by the sim- 
ple rule of three, which never errs, determine its progress? 
As the early settlement of Plymouth is to the United States 
of America, as it now is, so is the United States of America 
to the future possession and control of the world as they are 
to be. {Cheerhig.) This is to be, not by armies of invasion, 
nor by navies that are to carry the thunders of our powers. It 
is to be by our finding our place in the moral government of 
the world, and by the example, and its magnificent results, of 
a free people, governed by education, occupied by industry, 
and maintaining our connection with the world by commerce. 
Thus we are to disarm the armies of Europe, when they dare 
not disarm them themselves. {Cheers.) We present to man- 
kind the simple, yet the wonderful evidence that a peasant in 
Germany, or France, or Ireland, or England, carrying a soldier 
on his back, cannot compete in their own markets with a peas- 
ant in America who has no soldier on his back, though there 



41 

be 5,000 miles distance between their farms. {Loud Applause^ 
No doubt wonderfid commotions are to take place in the great 
nations of Europe, under this example. There is to be over- 
turning, and overturning, for which we have no responsibility, 
except, that by this great instruction, worked out by Provi- 
dence on this continent, there is to be a remodeling of society 
in the ancient countries of the world. {Applause.) Now you 
see in the magnitude of the designs of Providence, how, plant- 
ing the Puritans where they would desire to spread themselves 
abroad, and filling a continent, whence the ideas that they de- 
velope intelligibly to the whole world, are to distribute them- 
selves over the world, that this is the way in which the redemp- 
tion of society at home first, and abroad afterward, is to be 
accomplished by the power of the wisdom of God. 

And now for the outlook in other senses than that of ma- 
terial prosperity, how is it? As difficult and critical junctures 
have been reached in the development of the nation, and col- 
lisions, as when two tides meet, have awakened our own fears, 
and tried our own courage, and have raised the question whether 
these true ideas of our Republic were to triumph or to be 
checked — has not the issue always shown us, that faith in God, 
and faith in man, are a match for all the powers of evil in our 
midst and elsewhere? {Cheering.) If there needed to be a 
march to the sea, it was to be through the Southern country. 
{Loud Applause.) If there needed to be a surrender of one 
portion of this people to the other, it was to be in and of Virginia, 
and not in and of New England. {Applause.) And now what 
a wonderful spectacle is presented to our nation, and to the 
world, when the direct calamities that ever afflict a people — 
those of civil war had fallen upon us — when the marshaling 
of armies, in a nation that tolerate no armies, was greater and 
more powerful than the conflicts of the world had ever seen ; 
when the exhaustion of life, of treasure, of labor, had been 
such as was unparalled ; yet, in the brief space of fifteen years, 
the nation is more homogeneous, more bound together, more 
powerful and richer than it ever could have been but for the 
triumph of the good over the weak elements of this Republic. 
{Applause.) And what does all this show but the essential 
idea that it is man — man developed as an individual — man de- 
veloped by thousands, by hundreds of thousands, by millions, 



4^ 

and tens of millions, these make the strength and the wealth of a 
nation. These being" left us, the nation, the consumption as by a 
fire, attacking a city, or ravaging a whole territor}% or sweeping 
the coffers of the rich, or invading the cottages of the poor — 
all this material wealth may easily be repaired. If the nation 
remains with its moral and intellectual strength, brighter and 
larger and more indestructible possessions than the first, will 
soon replace them. On the three great pillars of American 
Society — equality of right, community of Intercast, and reci- 
procity of duty rests this great Republic. Riches and honor 
and length of days will mark the nation which rests on that 
imperishable basis. {Prolonged applause.) 



On announcing as the sixth toast: 

''The Army and Navy — Great and Imperishable Names 
AND Deeds haye Illustrated their History," 

The CJiairmaii said : "In response to this toast, I have the privi- 
lege of calling on the great Captain who commands the armies 
of the Republic ; of whom it has been said, that he combines 
the skill and valor of the soldier, with the wisdom of the states- 
man, and whose name will ever live in the history of the nation. 
We shall have the great satisfaction of listening to GeneRx\L 
Sherman." [Loud and protraeted applause.) 

General Sherman on rising was greeted with man\' cheers, 
and a warm reception. 

SPEECH OF GENERAL WILLIAM T. SHER>L\N. 

While in Washington I \vas somewhat embarrassed b\' 
receiving invitations from two different New England societies 
to dine with them on different days in commemoration of the 
same event. I hoped, under cover of that mistake, to escape 
one or the other, but find that each claims its day to be the 
genuine anniversary of the landing of their Fathers on Plymouth 
Rock. I must leave some of you to settle this controversy, for 
I don't know whether it was the 21st or 22d ; you here in 



Brooklyn say the 2ist: they in New York say it was the 22d. 
Laboring under this serious doubt, when I came on the stand 
and found my name enrolled among the orators and statesmen 
present, and saw that I was booked to make a speech, I appealed 
to a learned, and most eloquent, attorney to represent me on this 
occasion. I even tried to bribe him with an office which I could 
not give ; but he said that he belonged to that army sometimes 
described as " invincible in peace, invisible in war." {Laughter.) 
He would not respond for me. Therefore I find myself upon 
the stand at this moment compelled to respond, after wars have 
been abolished by the Honorable Secretary of State, and men 
are said to have risen to that level where they are never to do 
harm to each other again— with the millennium come, in fact, 
God grant it may be so? {Applause.) I doubt it. I heard 
Henry Clay announce the same doctrine long before our civil 
war. I heard also assertions of the same kind uttered on the 
floor of our Senate by learned and good men twenty years 
ago when we were on the very threshold of one of the most 
bloody wars which ever devastated this or any other land. 
Therefore I have some doubt whether mankind has attained 
that eminence, where it can look backward upon wars and 
rumors of war, and foiward to a state of perpetual peace. 

No, my friends, I think man remains the same to-day, as he 
was in the beginning. He is not alone a being of reason ; he 
has passions, and feelings, which require sometimes to be curbed 
by force ; and all prudent people ought to be ready and willing 
to meet strife when it comes. To be prepared is the best 
answer to that question. [Applause.) 

Now my friends, the toast you have given me to-night, to 
respond to is somewhat obscure to me. We have heard to-night 
enumerated the principles of your society— which are called 
" New England ideas." They are as perfect as the catechism. 
{Applause and laughter.) I have heard them supplemented by 
a sort of codicil, to the effect that a large part of our country — 
probably one half— is still disturbed, and that the Northern man 
is not welcome there. I know of my own knowledge that 
two-thirds of the territory of the United States are not yet 
settled. I believe that when our Pilgrim Fathers landed on 
Plymouth Rock, they began the war of civilization against 
barbarism, which is not yet ended in America. The Nation 



44 

then, as Mr. Beecher has well said, in the strife begun by our 
fathers, aimed to reach a higher manhood — a manhood of 
virtue, a manhood of courage, a manhood of faith, a manhood 
that aspires to approach the attributes of God Himself. 

Whilst granting to every man the highest liberty known on 
earth, every Yankee believes that the citizen must be the archi- 
tect of his own fortune ; must carry the same civilization 
wherever he goes, building school-houses and churches for all 
alike, and wherever the Yankee has gone thus far he has carried 
his principles and has enlarged New England so that it now 
embraces probably a third or a half of the settled part of 
America. That has been a great achievement, but it is not yet 
completed. Your work is not all finished. 

You who sit here in New York just as your London cousins 
did two hundred and fifty years ago, know not the struggle 
that is beyond. At this very moment of time there are Miles 
Standishes, under the cover of the snow of the Rocky Moun- 
tains, doing just what )'our forefathers did two hundred and 
fifty years ago. They have the same hard struggle before 
them that your fathers had. You remember they commenced 
in New England by building log cabins and fences and tilling 
the sterile, stony, soil, which Mr. Beecher describes, and I be- 
lieve these have been largely instrumental in the development 
of the New England character. Had your ancestors been cast 
on the fertile shores of the lower Mississippi, you might not be 
the same vigorous men you are to-day. Your fathers had to 
toil and labor. That was a good thing for you, and it will be 
good for your children if you can only keep them in the 
same tracks. But here in New York and in Brooklyn, I do 
not think you now are exactly like your forefathers were 
{lauglife?-), but I can take you where you will see real live Yan- 
kees, very much the same as your fathers were. In New York 
with wealth and station, and everything that makes life pleasant, 
you are not the same persons physically, though you profess 
the same principles yet as prudent men, you employ more 
policemen in New York — a larger proportion to the inhabitants 
of your city than the whole army of the United States bears 
to the people of the United States. You have no Indians 
here, though you have " scalpers." {Applause and laughter.) 
You have no " road agents" here, and yet you keep your 



45 

police ; and so does our government keep a police force where 
there are real Indians and real road agents, and you, gentle- 
men, who sit here at this table to-night who have contributed 
of your means whereby railroads have been built across the 
continent, know well that this little army, which I represent 
here to-night, is at this moment guarding these great roadways 
against incursions of desperate men who would stop the cars 
and interfere with the mails, and travel, which would paralyze 
the trade and commerce of the whole civilized world, that now 
passes safely over the great Pacific road, leading to San Fran- 
cisco. Others are building roads North and South, over which 
we soldiers pass almost yearly, and there also you will find the 
blue coats to-day, guarding the road, not for their advantage, 
or their safety, but for your safety, for the safety of your 
capital. 

So long as there is such a thing as money, there will be peo- 
ple trying to get that money ; they will struggle for it, and 
they will die for it sometimes. We are a good-enough people, 
a better people it may be than those of England, or France, 
though some doubt it. Still we believe ourselves a higher race 
of people than have ever been produced by any concatenation 
of events before. {Laughter.) We claim to be, and whether 
it be due to the ministers of New England, or to the higher 
type of manhood, of which Mr. Beecher speaks — which latter 
doctrine I prefer to submit to — 1 don't care which, there is in 
human nature a spark of mischief, a spark of danger, which in 
the aggregate will make force as necessary for the government 
of mankind as the Almighty finds the electric fluid necessary 
to clear the atmosphere. [Applause.) 

You speak in your toast of "honored names ;" you are more 
familiar with the history of your country than I am, and know 
that the brightest pages have been written on the battle-field. 
Is the'-e a New Englander here who would wipe " Bunker Hill" 
from his list for any price in Wall Street ? Not one of you ! 
Yet you can go out into Pennsylvania and find a thousand 
of bigger hills which you can buy for ten dollars an acre. It 
is not because of its money value, but because Prescott died 
there in defense of your government which makes it so dear to 
you. Turn to the West. What man would part w^ith the fame 
of Harrison and of Perry ? They made the settlement of the 



great North-west by your Yankees possible. They opened that 
highway to you, and shall no honor be given to them? Had 
it not been for the battles on the Thames by Harrison, and by 
Perry on Lake Erie, the settlement of the great West would 
not have occurred by New England industry and thrift. There- 
fore I say that there is an eloquence of thought in those names 
as great as ever was heard on the floor of Congress, or in the 
courts of New York. {Applause.) 

So I might go on, and take New Orleans, for example, where 
General Jackson fought a battle with the assistance of pirates, 
many of them black men and slaves, who became free by that 
act. There the black man first fought for his freedom, and I 
believe black men must fight for their freedom if they expect to 
get it and hold it secure. Every white soldier in this land will 
help him fight for his freeedom, but he must first strike for it 
himself. " Who would be free themselves must strike the 
blow." {Cheers.) That truth is ripening, and will manifest 
itself in due time. I have as much faith in it as I have that 
the manhood, and faith, and firmness, and courage of New 
England has contributed so much to the wealth, the civiliza- 
tion, the fame and glory of our country. There is no danger 
of this country going backward. The civil war settled facts 
that remain recorded and never will be obliterated. Taken in 
that connection I say that these battles were fought after many 
good and wise men had declared all war to be a barbarism — a 
thing of the past. The fields stained with patriotic blood will 
be revered by our children and our children's children, long after 
we, the actors, may be forgotten. The world will not stop ; it 
is moving on ; and the day will come when all nations will be 
equal " brothers all," when the Scotchman and the Englishman 
will be as the son of America. We want the universal hu- 
manity and manhood that Mr. Beecher has spoken of so elo- 
quently. You Yankees don't want to monopolize all the vir- 
tues ; if you do, you won't get them. {Laitg/ite?-.) 

The Germans have an industry and a type of manhood 
which we may well imitate. We find them settling now in 
South America, and in fact they are heading you Yankees off 
in the South American trade. It won't do to sit down here 
and brag. You must go forth and settle up new lands for you 
and your children, as your fathers did. That is what has been 



47 

going on since Plymouth Rock, and will to the end. The 
end is not yet, but that it will come and that this highest type 
of manhood will prevail in the end I believe as firmly as any 
man who stands on this floor. It will be done not by us alone, 
but by all people uniting, each acting his own part ; the mer- 
chant, the lawyer, the mechanic, the farmer, and the soldier. 
But 1 contend that so long as man is man there is a necessity 
for organized force, to enable us to reach the highest type of 
manhood aimed at by our New England ancestors. {Lond Ap- 
plause.) 



The next (seventh) toast announced was: 

" Commerce — The Law of our National Growth." 

T/ie CJiainnaii. — I am happ)' in being able to call on another 
New Englander, one of our townsmen, who, in his long and 
very distinguished career, has been second to none of the " mer- 
chant princes" of the land, in promoting and conducting the 
commerce of the country, and whose great liberality and public 
spirit have kept pace with his eminent success. Let me intro- 
duce Abiel a. Low, Esq. {Applause.) 

SPEECH OF A. A. LOW, ESQ. 

]\Ir. CJiairuian ami Gentlemen : The sentiment to which you 
ask me to respond is amply suggestive, and should be suf^- 
ciently inspiring; but I fear that my feeble words will belittle 
the theme, and I am reluctant to contrast the poverty of speech 
with the creations of wealth which everywhere surround us. 
It were idle to dilate upon the glory of the firmament to him 
whose eyes are fixed upon the stars, or, even upon the grandeur 
of the monument to one who stands beneath the pyramid ! I 
would fain turn from the dif^cult task set before me, and ask 
you to summon other witnesses ; to inquire of the student of 
history, who has traced every step of progress in the settlement 
of our country from the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers and 
contemporary adventurers, to this Western World, to what cause 



48 

it is mainly owing, that, in the space of one hundred years, 
thirteen States of the Union have increased to thirty-eight, and 
three millions of people have multiplied to fifty millions ; and 
that the stars and stripes now float over States and Territories 
extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans, and from 
Canada on the North, to Mexico on the South ; to what perva- 
sive influence acting upon every faculty in man, and stimulating 
to ceaseless endeavor, we may attribute the vast accessions 
which have been made to our national wealth, whether it be 
measured by the standard of gold, or weighed in the scale that 
tries the better riches of the mind and heart. Or, leaving the 
historian to his absorbing, comprehensive and unending task, 
ask the man of science what force it is which lends a quicken- 
ing impulse to all the varied industries that fill the land, and 
sends forth a multitudinous host — men of skill and of the brawny- 
arm — to bridge over swiftly running rivers, to pierce the rocky 
mountains, and cast the ligaments of steel which bind the cities 
of the East and the cities of the West together in ties of recipro- 
cal and enduring interest. Ask the expert in architecture by 
what means were raised those lofty buildings in our neighboring 
city, which are filled to repletion by the men of your own pro- 
fession, who are so honorably and so usefully employed, when 
imparting to corporate life the sanctions of statutory law, and 
vitalizing associate action with the force of a single will. Ask 
the scholar whence came the wealth which first founded and 
then endowed the Astor and Lenox libraries, and filled their 
shelves with the riches of a varied literature, gathered from 
every quarter of the globe — the books and manuscripts of 
ancient and modern times, written in every language known to 
civilized man. Ask the editor of the World who or what it was 
that lifted the Egyptian obelisk from its granite bed, and sent 
it on its travels across the Mediterranean Sea and the broad 
Atlantic, to find a home in Central Park — there to revive our 
memories of the age of Caesar and Cleopatra. Ask the divine 
through what agency so many costly edifices have been reared, 
with their spires pointing heavenward, wherein prophet and 
priest proclaim glad tidings of great joy and soothe the throb- 
bing temple and aching heart with words of Christian consola- 
tion. Or, turn to the disbeliever in miracles, and ask him 
under what auspices it came to pass that the still small wire 



49 

found its way across the ocean's bed, and became a vehicle of 
speech from nation to nation, and to all the nations of the world. 
Or, finally, ask the distinguished soldier by your side, what it 
was that supplied the sinews of war, and sustained the armies 
of the Union as they gathered round the forces of the south, 
and delivered rebellion to the death which befalls the girdled 
tree. {Applause.) 

To each and to all of these ciuestions, from each and all of 
these men, there shall come one and the same answer, expressed 
in the single word : Commerce ! {Applause.) And now, Mr. Presi- 
dent, let me ask you, who left your New England home more 
than fifty years ago, and took up your abode on Brooklyn Heights, 
if it was not upon this very spot where I now stand, that the 
Dutchman's cow found pasturage ; and if you have not seen 
this goodly city in which we live expand its borders and in- 
crease its taxes, with a rapidity almost unequaled; and, despite 
your own example, which in one respect, has been unfavorable 
to the national growth, have you not seen the population in- 
crease from 12,000 souls to more than half a million ? 

Brooklyn, as all here present know, has taken to herself out- 
lying towns, and villages, is about to annex the City of New 
York, and will then be prepared to begin upon the counties ; 
offering to each and all the closest " commercial relations." 
{Applai^sc.) If it be needful, Mr. President, further to illustrate 
the truth of the general proposition, that commerce is the law 
of our national growth, let me transport you, in fancy at least, 
to the shores of our inland lakes and to the banks of the 
majestic rivers that send their waters to the sea. And you 
shall behold cities which commerce has lifted from the plain, as 
with the magician's wand — cities surpassing in extent Con- 
stantinople and Alexandria — and clad in garments of more than 
oriental beauty ! Of the men that inhabit them — patriotic, 
brave, intelligent and true — it is enough to say, that a little 
more than two months from now, one shall stand forth in the 
capital of the Republic, who is their representative head, and 
when he takes his oath of office as President of the United 
States, in the presence of all the people, there shall not be one 
who will question his title to the honor. Nor can I express a 
better hope than this — that the coming man may prove to be 
the peer of him who is so soon to vacate the high office which 



50 

he has filled with dignit}^ and honor; and that the next admini- 
stration may leav^e as lustrous a page in history as that which is 
about to close. {Applause.) Ere we re-cross that ideal bridge 
which is destined to span the separating river, pause for a 
moment to look out on our noble bay. " There go the ships" 
— there go the steamers — larger and better than ever known 
before — in model more beautiful than Cleopatra's barge, and 
only less swift than the Eagle in his flight. They are laden 
with corn and wheat from the overflowing granaries, not of 
Joseph, but of Jonathan — a part of the providential store laid 
up from the teeming harvests of these latter years of plenty. 
Their arrival will be welcomed by our needy brethren on the 
other side. And when they return they will bring back, beside 
gold in the sack, the wine and oil, the tea and silk, and all other 
useful commodities that enter into the family store, as well as 
the precious things — gifts of nature, and works of art to deck the 
persons of the fair, and to adorn the homes where refinement 
dwells ; and, best of all, they will bring the men of culture and 
renown to speak to willing ears words of kindling inspiration. 
All these vessels, as they pass out and in, bear aloft the emblems 
of their respective nationalities, chiefly English, French and Ger- 
man, but among them all not one wears at the peak the flag of 
our country ! Has it been driven from the sea by an armed foe ? 
No, or the Nation's honor had been touched I [Applause.) 
There was a short and feeble struggle about thirty years ago — 
when British skill and British gold and British statesmanship 
were opposed to inexperience in the building of iron ships — for 
which we were ill prepared; to limited pecuniary means — to 
parsimony and unwisdom in the councils of the nation — and 
the flag came down for want of governmental aid ; or rather 
it ceased to fly over the steamer's deck out on the broad Atlan- 
tic — and American pride had a fall ! The conditions are but 
slightly changed. Liberal subsidies would have restored it 
then ; liberal subsidies would reinstate it now, and permit our 
navigation laws to stand as the strong bulwark of American 
industry. Do you not remember, that after the flag was struck 
down at Sumter, four thousand millions of dollars were spent, 
and hundreds of thousands of lives were lost, ere it was raised 
again to salute the dawn of a brighter day? We are richer 
now, both in heart and purse ; and may God speed the time 



51 

when the rising sun shall once more greet the stars and stripes, 
floating side by side with the cross of St. George, in a contest 
of peace and honor for the trophies of the seas ! And, millions 
of waiting eyes shall be gladdened at the sight ! {Loud Applause.) 



The eighth toast was : 

" Boston." 

T/ic CJiairnian. — We are favored with the company of a 
typical and eloquent Bostonian — identified with all that is 
learned and benevolent in that ancient home of the Puritans, 
and familiar with all its " notions." In response to this toast, 
we call on the Rev. Edward Everett Hale. 

Mr. Hale was received with much applause. 

SPEECH OF REV. EDWARD EVERETT HALE. 

I am sure, Mr. Chairman, that there is not a Boston boy who 
hears me to-night who does not recollect that when he went 
out to his first Pilgrim dinner, or to see Fanny Kemble, or to 
any other evening dissipation of fifty years ago, the last ad- 
monition of his mother was, " we will leave the candle burning 
for you, John, but you must be sure and be home before 
twelve o'clock!" I am sure that the memory of this admoni- 
tion is lingering among our friends now, that we are entering 
on the small hours, and that I must only acknowledge your 
courtesy and sit down. I feel, indeed, all along in your talk of 
hoar antiquity, that I owe my place here only to your extreme 
hospitality. In these aged cities you may well say to me 
"You Bostonians are children. You are of yesterday," as 
the Egyptians said to the Greek traveler. For we are still 
stumbling along like little children, in the anniversaries of our 
quarter-millennium ; but we understand perfectly well that the 
foundations of this city were laid in dim antiquity. I know 
that nobody knows when Brooklyn was founded. Your com- 
merce began so long ago that nobody can remember it, but I 
know that there was a beaver trap on every brook in Kings 
county, while Boston was still a howling wilderness. These 
4 



52 

noble ancestors of yours had made themselves at home on 
Plymouth Rock before we had built a flat-boat on any river in 
Massachusetts Bay. {Applause.) 

It is only as the youngest daughter, quite as a Cinderella, 
that we of Boston, have any claim on your matchless hospital- 
ity. But, as Cinderella should, we have done our best at home 
to make ready our sisters when they should go to the ball. 
When my brother Beecher, just now, closed his speech with a 
Latin quotation, I took some satisfaction in remembering that 
we taught him his Latin at the Boston Latin school. And I 
could not but remember when I listened with such delight to 
the address of Mr. Secretary Evarts, which you have just now 
been cheering, that the first time I heard this persuasive and 
convincing orator, was when he took the prize for elocution, a 
boy of thirteen, on the platform in the great hall in our old 
school-house in School street. Nay, I confess also, to a little 
feeling of local as well as national pride, when the President of 
the United States was speaking. Just as he closes this re- 
markable administration, which is going to stand out in history, 
distinguished indeed among all administrations from the begin- 
ing, so pure has it been, so honorable and so successful — just as 
he closes this administration he makes here this statement of 
the principles on which are based the success of an American 
statesman, in a few fit words so epigrammatic that they will be 
cited as proverbs by our children and our children's children. 
I heard that masterly definition of the laws which have gov- 
erned the New Englander, I took pride in remembering that 
the president also was a graduate of our law-school. These 
three are the little contributions which Cinderella has been pre- 
paring in the last half century, for the first dinner-party of the 
Brooklyn Pilgrim Society. {Applause.) 

I read in a New York newspaper in Washington the other 
day that something done in Boston lately was done with the 
"usual Boston intensity." I believe the remark was not 
intended to be a compliment, but we shall take it as one, and 
are quite willing to accept the phrase. I think it is true in the 
past, I hope it will be true in the future, that we go at the 
things which we have to do, with a certain intensity, which I 
suppose we owe to these Puritan Fathers whom to-night we 
are celebrating. Certainly we have gone at this business of emi- 



53 

gration with that hitensity. It is perfectly true that there are 
in Brooklyn to-day more people than there are in Boston, who 
were born in Boston from the old New England blood. Not 
that Brooklyn has been any special favorite. When I met last 
year in Kansas, a mass meeting of twenty-five thousand of the 
old settlers and their children, my daughter said to me, " Papa, 
I am glad to see so many of our own countrymen." She cer- 
tainly had never seen so many before, without intermixture of 
people of foreign races. Now it is certainly our wish to carry that 
intensity into everything. If the thing is worth doing at all it is 
worth doing thoroughly. What we do we mean to do it for 
everybody. You have seen the result. We try, for instance, 
if we open a Latin school at all, to have it the best Latin 
school in the world. And then we throw it open to everybody, 
to native and heathen, to Jew and to Greek, to white and black 
and red, and we advise you to go and do likewise. {Applause.) 
You recollect the old joke, I think it began with Preston of 
South Carolina, that Boston exported no articles of native 
growth but granite and ice. That was true then, but we 
have improved since, and to these exports we have added roses 
and cabbages. Mr. President they are good roses, and good 
cabbages, and I assure you that the granite is excellent hard 
granite, and the ice is very cold ice. {Laughter and Applause.) 



The ninth toast was : 

" The New England Society in the City of New York 
— A Worthy Representative of New England 
Principles." 

The Chairman. — Salem had its witches. They were gener- 
ally of the gentle sex. But one of them in the shape of mortal 
man, emigrated some twenty-five years ago, from Salem to 
New York, where he has ever since (as his famed kinsman and 
namesake before him did in Boston) bewitched courts and 
juries. At the risk of being bewitched, we will invoke the 
sorcerer to respond to this toast, and I therefore call on Mr. 
Choate. 

Mr. Choate upon rising received a very warm welcome. 



54 

SPEECH OF JOSEPH H. CHOATE, ESQ. 

J/r. Chairman and Gentlemen : As I intend to walk home 
over the bridge to-night {laugJiter) my remarks will be as brief 
as they must be sober; and a word of that great structure 
before I begin. If Mr. Murphy will excuse me for saying so, 
it is in every possible sense of the word to the people of both 
cities a " Bridge of Sighs " ! {Laughter.) 

It is well for you that you made this experiment before it 
was finally completed ; because, if, as they tell us, it is to make 
of us one city and one people, there should be written at its 
terminus, when it shall be completed, a motto borrowed from 
its namesake on the shores of the Adriatic: *' who enters here 
must leav^e all hope of an independent celebration in Brooklyn 
behind." {Laug/iter.) Gentlemen, I have been sent here to- 
night by your parent society, the New England Society of New 
York {laugJiter) to welcome in its behalf this infant prodigy, 
which has grown to full manhood, or womanhood, in the first 
night of its existence. {Applause.) Why, you have accom- 
plished as much in one twenty-four hours, as we in the pro- 
tracted struggle of the whole seventy-five years of our career. 
And this, too, in Brooklyn, the dormitory of New York {laugh- 
ter) — well, it shows how much good there is in sleep. {Laughter.) 
It shows how true those eulogies are which all the poets have 
exhausted upon sleep : 

" Sleep that knits up the ravel'd sleeve of care ; 
The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath ; 
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, 
Chief nourisher at life's feast." 

And yet, Gentlemen, it gives a death blow to some of that 
esteem and consideration in which we on the other side of the 
river, have been in the habit of holding our brethren and 
neighbors of Brooklyn. Seeing you as have year after year, 
for the last seventy-five years {laughter), coming as modest 
partakers of the viands that we set before you on Manhattan 
Island, we had come to look upon you as modest, unassuming, 
self-denying descendants of the Pilgrims, and worthy followers 
in their footsteps. But this declaration of independence of 
yours puts an entirely new phase upon the situation ; w^here is 
your long asserted modesty ? {Laughter.) Why, the most 



55 

sublime instance that I have ever known or heard of, of a 
modest, self-denying descendant of the sons of the Pilgrims was 
exhibited by a Brooklynite. He has since become a great 
Congregational clergyman. I name no names, for names are 
always invidious. It was in his younger days, after he had 
completed his course of instruction, and was ready to take 
upon himself the sacred orders; when he presented himself 
before the dignified conference that was to pass upon his 
qualifications, the Moderator put to him that great orthodox 
question, the test of which every candidate was expected to 
stand. " Sir," said the Moderator, " are you willing to be 
saved by consenting to be damned for the glory of God ? " 
{LaKghter.) And the sublime answer that he gave, justified 
the great reputation that he afterward gained. " No," said he, 
" Mr. Moderator, but I am perfectly willing that you should 
be !" {Great Applause.^ What perfect self-abegnation was there 
displayed ! and how sadly have you all fallen from that exalted 
standard! Another thing that I notice Mr. President, is that 
you have selected the 2 1st of December for your celebra- 
tion, instead of the 22d. General Sherman has been charitable 
enough to suppose that it is because there is a doubt on which 
of these days the Pilgrims landed. We believe on the contrary, 
that you have selected the 21st because we have selected the 
22d {laughter), or possibly at this late hour of the evening, we 
may be excused, not for considering it doubtful whether they 
landed on the 21st or the 22d, but for firmly believing that 
they landed on both days. {LaugJiter.) Gentlemen, it is a very 
serious question, this complication and re-duplication of New 
England festivals. The wheels of the Federal Government, as 
you perceive, must necessarily be stopped, until both these 
days are celebrated, and both these dinners eaten and digested. 
For one, I believe that the great welfare of this people would 
be promoted if the event could be celebrated on all the 365 
days of the year. {Applause.) If not only the President and 
Secretary of State, and the General of the Armies, but all the 
holders of office from them down to the lowest tide-water, 
could be fed every day upon your simple fare of pork and 
beans — and codfish and Indian pudding — why it would solve 
immediately that great problem of civil service reform which 
has vexed so much the patience of this Administration, and 



S6 

would give a free course, over which their successors could go 
on their way rejoicing and triumphant. {Applause.) But it is 
a great thingf to have two dinners, if we cannot have three hun- 
dred and sixty-five. It is a splendid thing to bring General 
Sherman here, who with his little army has now only to fight 
Indians, that he may learn at the shrine of Miles Standish, who 
also had nobody but Indians to fight — and who put them all 
to rout with his little train band of thirteen armed Pilgrims. 
{Laughter.) You may depend upon it that on Thursday morn- 
ing at any rate, the Secretary of State will return to his great 
duties at Washington, after partaking of both of these festivals, 
a fatter and a better man. {Tumultuous Laughter.) Mr. Presi- 
dent, one of the most interesting reflections that occurs to any 
thoughtful mind on gazing, around on such a company as this, 
is to compare these sleek, well fed, self satisfied, and contented 
men with what they were when they started out from New 
England. {Laughter.) Archimedes, brandishing his lever, said 
that if you could give him a point to stand on, he would move 
the world, and so, the genuine emigrant from New England 
says : " give me but a point for my feet {laughter) and plenty 
of elbow room, and I will make all the world about me, mine." 
It is told traditionally — I believe it is true — of one of the first 
pioneers from New England to this good old City of Brooklyn, 
that when he presented his letters at the counting-room at 
which he sought admission, the lordly proprietor of the estab- 
lishment asked him, " why, what in the world are all you 
Yankee boys coming here for?" "Sir," said he, with that 
modest assurance that marked the whole tribe {laughter), we 
are coming to attend to your business, to marry your daughters, 
and take charge of your estates." {Laughter.) I believe, sir, 
that the descendants of that hero, are still here, actual guests 
at this table to-night, and still have that particular estate in 
charge. (Laughter.) And if not they, why all these gentlemen 
represent the same practical application of that experience, and 
of that rule. Now Gentlemen, in behalf of the parent society 
that I represent, 1 bid you God speed. You cannot do better 
than to continue as you have begun, to eat and drink your way 
back to Plymouth Rock. It is the true way to celebrate the 
Pilgrim Fathers. Do not have any long orations. They nearly 
killed the parent society. (Laughter.) And let me tell you a 



5^ 

Very interesting reminiscence ; for one who has eaten twenty- 
five New England dinners in succession at the New York table, 
may indulge in one reminiscence: It was the first celebration 
that I ever attended, twenty-five years ago, in the City of New 
York, and we had an oration, and the very narration of what 
then occurred, shows what wondrous progress the principles of 
the Pilgrims have made in this last quarter of a century. It 
was in the old church of the Puritans, on Union Square, 
that has given place to that palace of art, now known by the 
the name of Tiffany's. There came one of the great and 
shining lights of Boston's intellect, giving us the best exposition 
that he could give of what my friend, Mr. Hale, describes as 
Boston intensity, overshadowed by Boston conservatism. He 
appealed to that congregation with all the eloquence that he 
could command, to stand by the Union as it was, upon the 
physical fact of slavery as it then existed. He appealed to 
them — to the white blood that ran in their veins — to stand by 
their white brethren, whenever there should come the conflict 
of races in this land. And I remember the icy chill that ran 
through the assembled company of New England's sons and 
daughters when he took his seat. But, fortunately there rose 
up after him that grand old chip of Plymouth Rock, John Pier- 
pont, who had himself suffered persecution in the very City of 
Boston, of which we are so proud, and he delivered the poem 
of the occasion, and as those glowing stanzas fell from his burn- 
ing and indignant lips, he fired the hearts of that congregation 
with his prophetic utterances. 1 remember the stanza with 
which he closed ; which, no one who heard him, it seemed to 
me, could ever forget, when he invoked the aid of the Almighty 
to inspire the hearts of the sons and daughters of the Pilgrims 
to be true to their fathers, and never to turn their backs on 
Liberty — never to desert the cause of the slave — : 

"O Thou Holy One, and just. 
Thou who wast the Pilgrims trust, 
Thou who watchest o'er their dust. 

By the moaning sea, 
By their conflicts, toils and cares. 
By their perils, and their prayers, 
By their ashes, make their heirs. 

True to them and Thee ! " 



58 



The cold fatalism of the orator was lost and forgotten ; but 
that burning prophecy of the poet, lives to-day. We see its 
fruits in a land redeemed from slavery, in a nation starting on 
an imperishable career of glory, where equal liberty, and equal 
law, are secure to all men, of every color, and of every race. 
{Long coiitiiuicd applause). 



The tenth toast was then given : 

" Education — Indispensible to the Safe Exercise of 
Universal Suffrage." 

Tlie Chair uian. — In response to this toast I beg to call on 
President Chadbourne, of Williams College, an institution 
which has sent forth over the land a legion of good, learned, 
faithful and useful men. Mr. Chadbourne was received with 
applause. 

SPEECH OF PRESIDENT P. A. CHADBOURNE. 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen : I find that there are a large 
number here who are taking Mr. Hale's advice to go home be- 
fore twelve o'clock, " lest the lamp should be put out," and the 
subject assigned to me certainly requires more time for consid- 
eration than it is proper for me to take after the hour of 
twelve, even before this long suffering and patient audience. 

We have just come out of a political conflict in which we 
have had a great deal to say about suffrage and universal suf- 
frage, and the right of every man to cast his vote as he pleases, 
and to have his vote counted. I am moreover impressed by 
this fact that there is no other place in the world where Ameri- 
can citizens are so upon a level as they are when they ap- 
proach the ballot box. There come the men of age and 
large experience, there come the young men, just taking upon 
themselves the burden of manhood, and there comes the Presi- 
dent of the United States himself, and there comes the first 
citizen of the Republic, who has been around the world (look- 
ing at General Grant) and had a triumphal entry into every 



59 

city which he has visited. {Great Applause.) When they meet be- 
fore the ballot box they are all equal. Each one can cast but 
a single ballot ; but it has been known in the history of the 
States — in Massachusetts certainly — that a single vote has 
elected the chief magistrate, and has thus determined the policy 
of the State government during that administration ; and un- 
der our present mode of electing the Chief Magistrate of the 
United States, by the Electoral College, the vote of a single 
State, yes, of a single elector, may change the result, and that 
elector may be chosen by a single ballot ; and therefore, while 
the American people come together and pour in their ballots 
by millions, and it seems as though a single ballot were lost, 
we are not to forget the great truth that a single one of them, 
may determine the policy of the whole government of the 
United States for four years. A ballot in the hands of an 
American citizen, old or young, rich or poor, learned or ignor- 
ant, is a most powerful instrument ; more powerful than we 
are accustomed to suppose. {Applause.) Therefore, it is that, 
although the president of a college, I have seen fit to deviate 
somewhat from the course of college presidents. I go to the 
caucus as to prayer meeting, and not only teach others that 
they should vote, but submit to any trouble and inconvenience 
that I may cast my ballot. {Applause.) 

I even go to political conventions, and consider it one of the 
most fortunate days of my life that four years ago I was a 
member of the Cincinnati Convention and had the pleasure of 
voting for the man who has given us the pure and clean admin- 
istration of the last four years. {Applause.) 

We cannot too carefully consider the duty of an American 
citizen, and the great power he holds in his hands. If he has 
it in his power by casting his ballot to determine the policy of 
this government for a series of years, it is proper that he should 
know something of what he does when he casts that ballot. 
The government has a duty resting upon it to protect itself. 
We spent four thousand millions of dollars, and thousands and 
hundreds of thousands laid down their lives to preserve this 
Union. Having done all this shall we leave the government 
— the policy of the government — to the decision of a man 
who can neither read nor write, who knows nothing of the history 
of his own country, and who could be bought for a dollar? 



While education alone is not a perfect safeguard, because edu- 
cation does not give morality always, educuation is a pre- 
requisite for intelligent voting. There is something more than 
reading and writing required ; the voter should know the his- 
tory of his country; not only be able to read the Constitution, 
as we demand in Massachusetts, but understand something of 
what that Constitution requires. In other words, it is essential 
to the perpetuity of our government as it now is, that the Amer- 
ican citizen should have that amount of education that will enable 
him to cast his vote not only in an honest but in an intelligent 
manner. This has become a practical matter for the nation. 
By the sword we have freed four millions of men. I have 
been among those freedmen, and have this to say, in the 
presence of him who has done and said so much to encourage 
education in our land ; the great thing to be done for the 
next ten years is to encourage education in every State in the 
Union, and especially in those States where we have set these 
men free. If we have given four thousand millions to preserve 
the Union, can we afford to let that people remain as ignorant 
as in the days of slavery. A New Englander, high in position, 
said the other day, " Let them do as we did in old New Eng- 
land times. We went two or three miles to school." Yes, 
but we were born of those who knew the value of education. 
Do you propose to leave those who know nothing of its value 
year after year, and generation after generation, as they now 
are ? I am glad that the Educational Bill passed in Congress, but 
if I could have added my voice there I should have said, " Give 
more than sixty thousand a year." {Applause.) 

We have been told here to-night that New York gives ten 
millions in a single year for education. There is not force 
enough in $60,000 to set the ball in motion. We should vote 
three or five millions a year for the next ten years, that we 
may educate this generation ; when we have done the work for 
this generation they will take it up and carry it on for them- 
selves and their children. But to expect that a poor down- 
trodden people living in a sparsley settled community and hav- 
ing none of the facilities we possess, can take up that work 
and carry it along as we can in New England and in New 
York is absurd, and the sooner our people understand it the 
better. {Applause.) 



61 

Then let us see to it, not only as States but as a nation, that 
there is put into the hands of every citizen of the United 
States, the means of becoming so educated that when he takes 
the ballot in his hand that may determine the fate of the 
nation for four years, his voting shall be the act of an intelli- 
gent freeman. {Applause,) 



The eleventh toast was ; 

"The State of New York." 

The CJiairvian. — Perhaps no congregation was ever assem- 
bled so overflowing with mutual admiration as that which is 
here to-night. At some peril to our self-love I will call on a 
very eloquent and unmitigated Dutchman to reply to this toast. 
How far we shall be chastened, or how far he may spare us, 
or score us, remains to be heard. 

I have the great pleasure of introducing the HON. 
Chauncey M. Depew. 

Loud cheers greeted Mr. Depew. 

SPEECH OF HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 

Mr. President: It is now nearly one in the morning, and 
while appreciating the compliment of your call, I feel that only 
your great courtesy to a guest, tolerates a speech after the splen- 
did surfeit you have had to-night. Beyond acknowledgment of 
your kindness I will detain you but a moment. I have at- 
tended as many dinners as any man of my age, but never one 
which called together so many distinguished and representa- 
tive men. This will be a memorable night to us all, for never 
again can we hope at the same table to find the first soldiers, 
statesmen and orators of our country and of our time. I cannot, 
as I intended, present the claims of our Imperial State or dissect 
its Eastern invaders and conquerors, but if the hour was not so 
late or so early, w^hen this Dutchman had concluded his analy- 
sis of the Yankee character an explosion would occur in this 
hall the like of which has never been heard in Brooklyn before. 
{LmigJiter^ 



63 

My toast is " THE STATE OF NEW York," and yet I never 
felt its inferiority as a State until an enthusiastic New Eng- 
lander here to-night, in a sudden grasp of the sentiment that 
the greater always includes the less, and a single Commonwealth 
might embrace the Union, greeted the President of the United 
States with " three cheers for the President of Ohio." {Laiighte?-). 

General Grant has glorified the carpet-bagger as the leaven 
of progress wherever he stops, and General Sherman says, that 
no place ever grows whose inhabitants consist entirely of those 
born on its soil. The principle announced by these eminent 
authorities accounts for that hitherto unsolved problem, the 
overshadowing influence of Brooklyn. She commands the at- 
tention and impresses the opinions of the world because beyond 
all other cities she takes in the stranger. With all my vast ac- 
quaintance among your citizens, I never met one who was born 
within the city limits. {Laughter.) While the best pulpits in both 
New York and Brooklyn are filled by gentlemen imported from 
abroad, we over the river, receive our teachings through the me- 
dium of broad Scotch or therich North-Irish brogue, but yours 
flows undefiled from the original Puritan fountains. Mr. Beecher 
said that one of the striking and successful characteristics of the 
Yankee was that he could run railroads and earn dividends 
without watering stocks, but the Dutchman is infinitely his 
superior in that, for he can both water his stock and still secure 
larger returns than his predecessor could upon the original in- 
vestment. My friend Choate said he had enjoyed twenty-five 
New England dinners and Mr. Evarts has survived something 
like forty of them. You all see the results upon them. It is 
very evident that if they had participated in the whole seventy- 
five which rounds the course of the New York society, it would 
have required a microscope of the highest magnifying power to 
have seen either of these eminently intellectual, but physically 
attenuated gentlemen. [Latightcr.) 

A discussion has arisen here to-night, why the New England 
Society of Brooklyn celebrates the 2ist while its New York co- 
temporary insists upon the 22d of December as the true date of 
the landing of the Pilgrims. Brooklyn with her superior 
scholarship and profounder antiquarian research insists that in 
changing calendars a day has been lost, and we have been 
repeating year after year twenty-four hours too late the first 



63 

frugal meal so thankfully partaken on the famous Rock. But, 
any one familiar with Yankee thrift and smartness can see, that 
all this vast store of learning is only to get one dinner here this 
evening, and another in New York to-morrow. Thus it ever is 
with him, the deeper, broader, more beautiful he builds, the 
larger profit and pleasure he receives. 

What would the Yankee have ever become without the 
State of New York ? Among his New England hills, shut out 
from the rest of the world, his life would have been bounded 
and confined by the narrow limits of his territorial conditions. 
His native acuteness would have grown sharper by attrition 
upon itself, but he could never have expanded into the broad, 
progressive, most useful creature who everywhere blesses and 
abounds. New York furnished him an outlet and he has 
grandly improved it. {Applause?) 

Some one has said the Puritan and the Dutchman were 
shaken out of the same bag. The original stock in Holland 
dyked out the sea and cultivated and preserved, against the 
forces of darkness all about, civil and religious liberty. They 
kept their principles pure by a system of popular education. 
The branch which settled in England produced Hampden, 
Pym, Sidney and the Puritans. Oppressed by races alien in 
blood and faith, they kept their sturdy independence and 
opinions. But their hard conditions so unnerved them that 
they could not then understand, that freedom for them, must 
mean equal rights to everybody. Their residence in Holland 
fitted them to subdue New England, and the renewal of their 
relations with the Dutchmen in New York liberalized them 
into the full stature of the rrien who have been the force and 
inspiration of American progress. With the exception of 
Mayor Hunter, I stand here alone as a representative of the 
Dutch. I attend your dinner because it is the only opportunity 
we have to get even for your long occupation of our State. 
[Laughter-). I am like the famous temperance lecturer who 
was detected by one of his disciples taking a hot whiskey toddy 
before going to bed, " I thought you were a total abstainer" 
said his shocked disciple, " and so I am," said the lecturer, 
" but not a bigoted one." {Laughter.) 

If Miles Standish and Carver and Brewster could walk in 
yonder door and see this crowd of revelers, they would neither 



G4 

recognize or own a descendant among the crowd, {Laughter}) 
But if with the limited education of their digestive organs they 
had eaten this dinner, they would to-morrow hold in firmer 
faith their well known views of certain conditions of the future 
state. {LangJitcr?) But Carver and Brewster though they might 
judge that their descendants had sadly degenerated from their 
standards, would on closer acquaintance, claim full kinship. Like 
them, their descendants, preach and practice the doctrine of go- 
inge verywhere and possessing the land. Within the Pilgrim of 
our time are all the strong elements of the original stock. 
Wherever you find him, he is an ardent lover of liberty and 
human rights, an enemy of bad government, a friend and sup- 
porter of the church, the common school and of progress. 
{Loud Applause.) 

At the conclusion of Mr. Depew's speech all present, upon 
the invitation of the Chairman, joined in singing the Doxology 
which concluded the exercises. 



PROCEEDINGS 



Second Annual Meeting 



Second Annual Festival 



The New England Society 



IN THE CITY OF BROOKLYN. 



OfficePxS, Directors, Council, Members, 
Standing Committees, 

AND 

By-Laws of the Society. 



CONTENTS. 



Objects of the Society, .......••• 3 

Terms of Membership, ........ ... 3 

Applications for Membership, ......... 3 

Officers 4 

Directors, ............. 5 

Council, .........•■•• 5 

Standing Committees, ......••■■ 6 

Report of Second Annual Meeting, ......•■ 7 

President's Second Annual Report, .....-•• 7 

Proceedings at the Second Annual Festival, . . . . • . -13 

Grace, by Rt. Rev. R. H. Clarkson, D. D. . ... . . . 14 

Menu, . -14 

Thanks, by Rev. A. J. Canfield, ........ 15 

Address of President Silliman, ......••■ I5 

Speech of Gen. U. S. Grant, ......••• 16 

" Hon. Henry C. Murphy, . 17 

Letter of Hon. Thurlow Weed, ......•• 19 

Speech of Hon. John D. Long, . 20 

" Hon. Chauncey M. Depew, . . . . • ... 25 

" Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, ....... 29 

Toast, " The Memory of Garfield," 34 

Hymn, sung by Mr. Fred Steins, -34 

Remarks of President Silliman on Hon. George H. Pendleton. . . 34 

Speech of E.x-Gov. J. L. Chamberlain, ...•••• 35 

" Hon. George B. Loring, .... ... 40 

Gen. Horace Porter, . . . . • .• • -45 

" Rev. Robert Collyer, ........ 48 

" Hon. Seth Low, .....•••• 52 

Mr. P. J. Regan 54 

Correspondence, ......•••••• 5° 

By-Laws, .61 

Honorary Members, .....•••■•• "7 

Life Members, ^'7 

Annual Members, .......••■•• "° 

Meetings of the Society, .....-•■•• 73 

Form of Bequest, .......••••• 73 



OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY. 

The New England Society in the City of Brooklyn is incorporated and organ- 
ized, to commemorate the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers ; to encourage the study 
of New England history ; to establish a library, and to promote charity, good 
fellowship and social intercourse among its members. 



TERMS OF MEMBERSHIP. 



Admission Fee $10.00 

Annual Dues, S'^^ 

Life-Memhership, besides Admission Fee, . 50.00 
Payable at Election, except Annual Dues, which ajy payable in January of each year . 

Any member of the Society in good standing may become a Life Member on 
paying to the Treasurer the sum of fifty dollars; or on paying a sum which n\ 
addition to dues previously paid by him shall amount to fifty dollars, and thereafter 
such member shall be exempt from further payment of dues. 

Any male person of good moral character, who is a native or descendant of a 
native of any of the New England States, and who is eighteen years old or more 
is eligible. 

If in the judgment of the Board of Directors, they are in need of it, the widow 
or children of any deceased member shall receive from the funds of the Society, a 
sum equal to five times the amount such deceased member has paid to the Society. 

The friends of a deceased member are requested to give the Historiographer 
early information of the time and place of his birth and death, with brief incidents 
of his life for publication in our annual report. Members who change their address 
should give the Secretary early notice. 

^"\i is desirable to have all worthy gentlemen of New England descent 
residing in Brooklyn, become members of the Society. Members are requested to 
send applications of their friends for membership to the Secretary. 

Address, 

ALBERT E LAMB, Recording Secretary, 

377 Fulton Street, Brooklyn. 



OFFICERS. 
1881-1882. 



President : 
BENJAMIN D. SILLIMAN. 



First Vice-President . 
JOHN WINSLOW. 



Second Vice-President : 
CHARLES STORRS. 



Treasurer ; 
WILLIAM B. KENDALL. 



/Recording Secretary ■' 
ALBERT E. LAMB 



Corresponding Secretary : 
Rev. a. p. PUTNAM. 



Historiographer : 
STEPHEN B. NOYES. 



Librarian : 
Rev. W. H. WHITTEMORE. 



DIRECTORS. 



For One Year : 

Ripley Ropes, A. S. Barnes, 

Henry W. Slocum. 

For Two Years : 

Benjamin D. Silliman, Hiram W. Hunt, 

George H. Fisher. 

For Three Years : 

William H. Lyon, William B. Kendall, 

Charles Storrs. 

For Four Years : 

[ohn W'Inslow, Calvin E. Pratt, 

Asa W^ Tenney. 



COUNCIL. 



Alexander M. White, 
A. A. Low, 
Horace B. Claflin, 
John B. Httchinson, 
Charles Pratt, 
S. B. Chittenden, 
Joshua M. Van Cott, 
John Y . Henry, 
R. Cornell White, 
Albert Woodruff, 



Amos Robbins, 
E. H. R. Lyman, 
Leonard Richardson, 
d. h. houghtaling, 
William Coit, 
Henry E. Pierrepont, 
John Greenwood, 
Charles E. W^est, 
Charles L. Benedict, 
George G. Reynolds, 



S. L. Woodford, 
Thomas H. Rodman, 
Benj. F. Tracy, 

E. R. DUKKEE, 

Gordon L. Ford, 

D. L. Northrop, 

E. S. Sanford, 
Arthur Mathewson, 
Augustus Storrs, 
James How. 



STANDING COMMITTEES. 



Finance : 

Charles Stokrs, William H. Lyon, 

George H. Fisher. 



Chariiv 



Ripley Ropes. Henry \V. Slocum, 

Asa W. Tenney. 



hi7'itations : 

Benjamin D. Su.liman, Rev. A. P. Putnam, 

John Winslow. 



Annual Festival : 

William B. Kendall, Calvin E. Pratt, 

Hiram W. Hunt. 



Fiil'lications : 

John Winslow, A. S. Barnes, 

Charles Storks. 



THE SECOND ANNUAL MEETING. 

The Second Annual Meeting of Tlie New England Society in the City of 
Brooklyn, was held in the Lecture Room of the Long Island Historical Society 
Building, Wednesday evening, December 7th, 1881. 

Mr. Benjamin D. Silliman, President of the Society, called the meeting to 
order and officiated as Chairman. 

The Minutes of the Annual Meeting held December 7th, 1S80, were read and 
approved. 

On motion, six gentlemen were elected members of the Society. 

On motion of Mr. Nelson J. Carman, Jr., Messrs. John Winslow, Asa W. 
Tenney, and Calvin E. Pratt, were nominated Directors for the ensuing four years, 
and the Secretary was empowered and directed to cast a single liallot for their 
election, which being done, they were declared elected. 

Mr. Charles Storrs, Chairman of the " Committee on Finance," reported that 
the Treasurer's accounts had been audited by the Committee and found correct. 

Mr. William B. Kendall, Treasurer, presented his annual report, showing a 
balance on hand of $6,834.82, which was, on motion, approved and ordered to be 
placed on tile. 

The President read his annual report, which was as follows : 

PRESIDENT'S SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 

" Gentlemen of The Ne-cU England Society : We may well be satisfied with the 
condition and prospects of our association. It was formed in a good spirit, and for 
good purposes. Harmony, energy, and success, have thus far marked its course, 
and we have every reason to expect its perpetuity, its usefulness, and its promotion 
of the great ends for which it was formed. There are at this time 41S members of 
the Society, of whom 91 have been added to its roll since our last meeting. You 
have already learned by the report of the Treasurer, Mr. Kendall, that the receipts 
during the year have been $4,454.05, the disbursements $1,094.03, making a total 
balance in the Treasury of $6,834.82. Our resources will, it is hoped, suffice, at 
no remote date, for the accomplishment of all objects contemplated by the charter 
which recjuire expenditure of money. 

Since our last Annual .Meeting seven of our members have died. Among them 
was Mr. Alden J. Spooner, the Historiographer of the Society. Mr. Stephen B. 
Noyes has been appointed to that office in his stead, and has collated and furnished 
sketches and materials for the following notices of those who have passed away. 

They were : 

Abram R. Frothingham, who was born in Salem, Mass., July 15th, 1812. 
He was a resident of Brooklyn for nearly fifty years, having left Salem in his 
early manhood. Acquiring full knowledge of business in the establishments of 
Messrs. Downer & Co., and of Messrs. West, Oliver & Co., he became, in 1842. a 



8 

member of the house of Carlton, Frothingham & Co., wholesale dealers in silk 
goods, a connection which lasted during the remainder of his active business life. 
In l86S he was elected Vice-President of the Lamar histirance Company^ and on the 
death of Mr. Isaac B. St John, the President of that corporation, he succeeded 
to the Presidency. Mr. Frothingham was also a member of the Chambey- of Corn- 
mene of New York, having joined that body in 1S54, and taken an active part in 
its proceedings up to the time of his death. He was one of the directors of the 
Union Trust Company, and was connected with other important interests. He 
was one of the founders of the First Unitarian Church of this city, in 1842, and 
continued a member of that society for many years. He died June ist, 1881. 
As a man he was held in great esteem, and in business circles was honored for his 
probity and sincerity of purpose. He was a member of the New England Society 
of Brooklyn from the beginning. 

Charles H. Fellows was born at Stonington, Conn., Jan. 26, 1819, and died 
at New London, Conn., Dec. 18, 1S80, while on a temporary visit. His family 
came to America from England in the last century. They removed to New London 
when he was 15 or 16 years of age. He was married in 1841 to Miss Mallory 
of New London. He made Brooklyn his home in 1845, and subsequently became 
connected with Mr. W. H. Starr in manufacturing business. He was associated 
in many local enterprises and charities. Among the positions lield by him were 
those of Trustee of Williamsburgh Savings Bank (for many years) ; Director and 
President of the Manufacturers National Bank, (E. D.); Director in the Kings 
County Fire Ins. Co., and Grand Street Rail Road Co. He was always prominent 
in the Methodist Church, and was especially interested in the Central Methodist 
(South 5th St.) ; also in the South 3rd St. Methodist Church, and was for 25 years 
Superintendent of the Sunday School ; also a member of the Missionary Board of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, and Director and Treasurer of the Library and 
Building Fund Association of the Eastern District. Mr. Fellows was a man of 
vigorous health and of commanding and prepossessing manners. lie received from 
the Republican party, but declined, the nomination as Mayor of Brooklyn. He 
was a man of sterling integrity ; genial in his manners ; earnest and decided in his 
opinions and frank in expressing them. Mr. Fellows was a member of this Society 
from its foundation. 

CiEORGE Beckford Akcher was born at Salem, Mass., July 30th, 1S03. His 
chief education was in the Grammar School of his native city ; in which, besides 
the ordinary instruction in the English branches, he acquired a considerable 
knowledge of the Latin language. In 1S28 he came with Mr. Seth Low (after- 
ward so well known and long honored in this city) to New York, and became his 
partner in the wholesale drug business, under the style of Seth Low & Co., which 
continued till the death of the senior partner in 1853. 

In 1S33, Mr. Archer married Mary Ann, eldest daughter of Mr. Low. She 
died in Sept. 185 1. leaving three children, two sons and a daughter. The oldest 
son is the present George A. Archer of New York City ; the youngest, the late 
Edward L. Archer who died Aug. 11, 1S65, in his nineteenth year; and Mary 
Anne, widow of the late Joseph Lord, and still living in this city. After the 
deatli of his partner, Mr. Low, in 1S53, Mr. Archer formed a new house under the 
style of Archer, Low & Bull, his partners being the late S. Haskell Low and 
Henry K. Bull. After the death of Mr. Low, in 1857, the firm became Archer & 
Bull, .\bout five years ago Mr. Archer retired from business, and his long-time 
friend Mr. Bull formed a new partnership with Mr. James Darrah, retaining how- 
ever to this day the style of the old house of Archer & Bull. 

Mr. Archer was a second time married, on the iSth of October, 1S53, to Mrs. 
Abigail Wyman, daughter of the late James Cutler of Boston, Mass. Mr. Archer 
died on loth of May, iSSi. aged 78 years ; and his wife survives him. He was a 
resident member of our Society from its beginning to his death. 

Of a singularly unostentatious spirit and temper ; so humble, so modest, indeed, 
that they who knew him best thought he tendeel far too largely to an unjust self- 
depreciation, he shrank from even deserved praise. By nature and habit he was 
very reticent, a man of few words ; but beneath his apparent reserve, his quiet and 
retired manner, there beat a heart of great warmth and genuine sensibility. No 



truer, sincerer, more faithful friend than he ; and no one who enjoyed his friendship 
can ever forget his hearty greeting, with his kindling smile and his magnetic grasp. 
If of few words, he thought much ; and by choice reading and faithful self-culture 
they were the words of the wise. As a merchant, he was of the loftiest and most 
scrupulous integrity ; large and generous in his views and dealings ; inspiring con- 
fidence at once in his sterling principle and high minded rectitude ; far-seeing, but 
never rash ; and commanding always the respect of the mercantile community, 
with which he was so long and honorably connected. 

Mr. Archer did not court general society; he was essentially and especially a 
home-lover. His tastes, his habits, his preferences, were all for the Home, for 
domestic life. 

He was one of the founders of the Church of the Saviour, the First Unitarian 
Congregational Church of this city ; whose interests he most faithfully served, and 
of which he was a most worthy and honored member. The latter years of his life, 
when he was under the cloud of ill-health, served only to illustrate through his 
serene patience the deep and strong hold which his Christian faith had upon him. 
For all good institutions in his adopted city, educational, literary, or benevolent, 
his aid was always to be relied on ; while his example as a man, a citizen, and a 
patriot, quiet, unpretentious, unobtrusive though it was, we may be sure was not 
unobserved and not without fruits. 

Ethelbert Mills Low was born in Brooklyn, October i, 1848. He was 
graduated from Harvard College with honor in the class of 1870. He had previ- 
ously studied in that admirable school the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic 
Institute, and also with private tutors. During the first two years of his college 
life he was particulaily prominent in athletic sports- and in college societies. He 
was captain and " stroke oar" of the University crew in 1868. After graduation 
he made a journey around the world, and spent some time in China. Upon his 
return he entered business as a clerk in the house of Messrs. A. A. Low & Bro., 
of which in 1875 he became a partner, displaying marked energy and business 
ability. Mr. Low was a man of literaiy taste and much intellectual vigor, and 
was noted in social circles for his wit and brilliancy in conversation. The stronger 
points of his character — his warm affections and his deep and earnest religious 
feelings, the growth of a fine nature and of mental conviction, were well known 
and appreciated by those nearest to him. He was a hard worker and a close 
student. By overtaxing his strength his liealth was gradually undermined, and he 
died (while under treatment of Dr. Weir Mitchell and Dr. Sinkler) in Philadelphia, 
July 29, 1881. 

Mr. Low was married June 6, 1878, to Miss Mary Ide, daughter of Henry E. 
Ide, Esq., of Brooklyn. His widow and one son survive him. 

He was an active member of the Hamilton Literary Association, and was for 
a period Secretary of the Brooklyn Art Association. Of this Society he was a 
meml^er from tlie beginning. 

Alden Jeremlmi Spooner, who was one of the earliest members of this 
Society, was born in Sag Harbor. He died of apoplexy at Hempstead on the 2nd 
of August last, at the age of seventy-one years and five months. His father. Col. 
Alden Spooner was a prominent citizen of Long Island, is well remembered, and 
was highly esteemed by the older citizens of Brooklyn. He owned, and edited, in 
Brooklyn, the "Long Island Star," the first newspaper published on Long Island. 
He was a sincere man, of strong and gentle nature and of excellent good sense. 
His son, Alden J., studied law, and after practising it some time at Hempstead 
opened an office in New York City. For many years he edited the Star. In 1863 
he was appointed Commissioner of Jurors in this county, which office he held for 
three years ; and was appointed in January, 1875, to a clerkship in the City Court 
of Brooklyn, which he held at the time of his death. 

Whatever would redound to the prosperity or improvement of this city, or of 
its inhabitants, always had his earnest advocacy, and in many cases his inspiration. 
He was one of the projectors, and the first President, of the Hamilton Society, 
which has been, and is, an honor to this city, and which has developed and sent 
forth some or the finest intellects, and some of the most eloquent and honored of 



10 

our public men — men distinguished as statesmen, in the professions, in commerce, 
and in the other pursuits of active life. 

Mr. Spooner was also one of the founders, and one of the first officers of the 
Lone- Iskind Historical Society, the grand institution under whose roof we are now 
assembled. He urged its establishment and drew and signed the call which con- 
vened the first meeting, 14th February, 1863, and which determined that result. 
He was likewise identified with the creation, and conduct, of many other of the 
benevolent, and literary institutions of the city, such as the Apprentices Library, 
the City Library, and the Athenaeum. 

In the beautiful minute to his memory prepared by his friend Mr. Van Cott, 
and adopted by the Directors of the Historical Society, it is well said of him that 
" His tastes were always predominantly literary, and his busier years were divided 
between journalism and the practice of the law. He was a wide reader, and wrote 
with facility and finish in both prose and verse. He was a delightful companion, 
and abounded in anecdote and genial humor. He was humane and generous up 
to the full measure of his means. From early manhood down to his death on the 
ver<Te of old afre.he sympathized witli all measures and efforts which aimed to make 
men wiser, better and happier in their lives. 

"Beyond most of his contemporaries he had a prescience of the rapid growth 
and prosperity of this city, and of its needs for libraries, lyceums, schools of art 
and other institutions for the culture and pleasure of a vast population, and he was 
alwavs a prompt, eager, and enthusiastic participant in all combined efforts to make 
early and adequate provision for such needs." 

fOHN H. Babcock was born in Westford, Otsego County, New York, Jan. 31, 
1821 • and died Aug. 7, 1881, at his summer residence in Cooperstown, New York, 
to which place his father (who was Sheriff of his county) had removed. He was a 
man of marked ability and influence. The subject of this notice was for thirty 
years extensively engaged in business at Little Falls and Fort Plain. He retired 
with a competency in 1871, and subsequently resided in Brooklyn, passing his 
summers in Cooperstown. 

Mr. Babcock was a genuine New Englander in all his tastes and instincts. He 
was a trentleman of high honor and probity, and was much respected and beloved 
by a large circle of friends. He was a member of this Society from its com- 
mencement. 

George Crary, who was one of the earliest members of this Society, was born 
at Buffalo in 1827. He was a son of General Leonard P. Crary, long a resident 
of that city, who died in 1836. Li 1857 Mr. Crary removed from Buffalo to New 
York City, and became and continued for many years to be a member of the firm of 
Messrs. E. R. Durkee & Co. until his death. For a number of years he was an 
active member of the Elm Place Church, Brooklyn, under the ministry of Rev. 
W. A. Bartlett. Subsequently he was for .some years a member of the Plymouth 
Church congregation. His business and executive ability were marked, and his 
genial countenance, manly bearing, and kind heart, endeared him to his many 
friends. In the vigor of manhood, and in apparently unbroken health, he died 
suddenly of apoplexy, Sept. 22, 1881. 

Such were the careers and characters of our brethren who have gone before us. 

Since the last annual meeting, the By-Lazvs of the Society have been carefully 
revised and amended, and are now, it is believed, free from objection, and adequate 
to all the requirements, in that respect, of the Society. 

The Animal Festival on the 2lst December last was not only a very large, but 
a most agreeable family gathering. The descendants of the Pilgrims and the 
Puritans were present in good numbers and good fellowship. Among the distin- 
guished guests who attended, and who made interesting and eloquent addresses, 
were the President of the United States, Mr. Hayes ; the ex-President, General 
Grant ; General Sherman, Commander of the Army ; Mr. Evarts, the Secretary of 
State ; President Porter of Yale College ; President Chadbourne of Williams College ; 
Rev. Mr. Beecher ; A. A. Low, Esq.; Joseph H. Choate, Esq.; and Hon. 
Chauncey M. Depew. 



11 

At the approaching Annual Festival, on the 2ist of this month, which will be 
held, as was the last, at the Assembly room in the Academy of Music, and the 
adjoining Art Gallery, we have reason to expect a full attendance, (the seats being 
already almost all taken,) and the presence of many eminent persons as our guests. 
One of the objects of this Society, expressed in its charter, is the study of New 
England History. It has already achieved much in that respect in the very able 
and conclusive demonstration by one of our members, Professor Charles E. West, 
that the Pilgrims landed on the 2ist and not, as has been so long and so generally 
assumed, on the 22d December, 1620. 

In 1850 the Pilgrim Society (founded in 1820), at Plymouth, Mass., after careful 
investigation, decided that the 21st was the true day of the landing. Professor 
West has further placed the date beyond doubt. In his learned paper (read by 
him at the last meeting of this Society and published in our proceedings) invoking 
the higher mathematics, reviewing the calendars of Carthage, of Pope Julius, 
A. D. 336, and other calendars both earlier and later than the year one, and sum- 
moning, among others, Ptolemy, Copernicus, Tyco Brahe, Julius Ctesar, the Nicene 
Council, and Eudoxus as witnesses, and converting old style into new style, he has 
with mathematical certainty demonstrated that the Pilgrim P'athers did land at 
Plymouth on the 21st (and not on the 22d) December, 1620. 

Professor West's report and his conclusions having been adopted by this Society, 
the question is no longer an open one with us, although some learned explorers do 
not concur, and among them S. H. Gay, Esq., who claims that the landing was on 
the 4th January, 1621, and refers as part of his evidence to the Diary of the 
Mayflower kept by two of her eminent passengers, William Bradford and Edward 
Winslow, the latter of whom was an ancestor of the Vice-President of this Society. 

Although such speculations and theories, however ingenious and plausible, are 
necessarily vain, since the matter is now resjuJieata by us, yet we hail and welcome 
them as evidences of earnest interest in the study of New England history, which 
as I have said, it is one of the purposes of this Society to promote. Among other 
ends for which it was organized — those of commemorating the landing of the 
Pilgrims, social intercourse, and the promotion of charity and good fellowship 
among its members — are already fully attained." 

On motion this report was accepted and ordered to be spread upon the minutes, 
and also to be published in the annual report issued by the Society. 

Addresses were made by John Winslow and Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. 

On motion, a vote of thanks was tendered to these gentlemen, for the instruc- 
tion and entertainment their remarks had given. 

Adjourned. 

ALBERT E. LAMB, 

Recording Secretary. 

In the notice convening this meeting, it was announced that a paper would be 
read, and that each member of the Society might be accompanied by a lady. 
Many ladies were present. After the adjournment, a collation was served in the 
Museum Room of the same building, to which all repaired. This novel and social 
feature greatly added to the interest of the meeting and was very generally 
approved. 



Proceedings and Speeches 

AT THE 

SECOND ANNUAL FESTIVAL, 

HELD 

December 2isT. 1881, 

/;/ commemoration of the Two Hundred and Sixty-first Anniversary 
of the Landing of the Pilgrims. 



The Second Annual Festival of The New England Society in the 
City of Brooklyn, was held in the Assembly Room of the Academy 
of Music, and in the Art Room adjoining, Wednesday evening, 
December 21st, 1881. 

The Reception was held in the Art Room, where a choice collection 
of paintings belonging to members of the Brooklyn Art Association 
were then on exhibition. There were two hundred and seventy-five 
present, and among the number, many distinguished guests and the 
best representatives of the New England element in the City of 
Brooklyn. Each member wore a red satin badge, upon which was 
stamped in gilt the Seal of the Society, the Arbutus or Mayflower, 
and the words "Second Annual Festival, December 21st, 1881. 

At the close of the Reception, which lasted until seven o'clock, 
the doors of the Assembly Room were thrown open. It was in this 
Room that the dinner was given. The walls were adorned with the 
Coat-of-Arms of each of the thirteen original States, the National 
flag, and the flag of the City of Brooklyn. There were eight tables, 
besides the guest table, all of which were tastefully decorated with 
flowers. The dinner was furnished by Delmonico and was excellent 
and the service admirable. The music of an orchestra stationed in 
the room adjoining added much to the enjoyment of the occasion. 

At the guests' table, seated on either side of the President, were, 
to the left, Hon. John D. Long. Right Rev. Robert H. Clarkson 
Bishop of Nebraska, Gen. Horace Porter, Rev. A, J. Canfield, Hon. 
Seth Low, Rev. Robert CoUyer and Hon. George G. Reynolds; and 
to the right. Gen. U. S. Grant, Gen. J. L. Chamberlain, Rev. Henry 
Ward Beecher, Hon. George B. Loring, Hon. Chauncey M. Depew, 
Hon. B. F. Tracy, Hon. Henry C. Murphy, Hon. James Howell, 
and P. J. Regan, Esq. 



14 

GRACE. 

BY RT. REV. R. H. CLARKSON, D. D. 

Make us thankful, O Lord, our Heavenly Father, for this 
provision of Thy bounty, and for all Thy goodness and mercy to 
us ; pardon our sins and bless always with Thy love and favor, 
for Christ's sake. Amen. 





MENU. 






— o — 

Oysters. 






Soups. 




Fianklyn. 




Cr 


A variety. 


Side-dishes. 
Timbales. 





Cream of Celery. 

A variety. 



Fish. 
Salmon, with Shrimp Sauce. Smelts, a la Tartar. 

Efitrecs. 

Wings of Young Turkeys a la Bearnaise. 

Scallops a la Berthier. Fillet of Beef a la Matignon. 

Terrapin in Cases. 

Sherbet. 
Imperial Cigarettes. 

Roasts . 

Canvasbacks. Quails. 

Salad. 

Cold- dishes. 
Venison Pie. Boned Turkey, with Truffles. 

Vegetables. 
Green Peas. Beans. Spinach. Potatoes. 

Siveettneats . 

Plum Pudding, with Rum Sauce. 

Pine Apple Jelly. Charlotte Parisienne. 

Pyramids. 
Pastry. Assorted Cakes. 

Ices. 

Neapolitan. Chesnut Puffs. 

Fruits and Dessert. 
Coffee. 



15 

At the close of the dinner, Rev. A. J. Canfield returned 
thanks. 

THANKS. 

Ahiiighty God, our Heavenly Father, we give Thee hearty 
thanks for the sacred associations which have rendered this 
Day worthy of grateful remembrance ; and while we venerate 
the stern self-sacrifice of our Pilgrim Fathers, we rejoice to 
recognize Thy Hand in the happier auspices under which, on the 
present occasion, we commemorate the men and the events, 
which have made us what we are. 

May the spirit of their successful enterprise abate our 
superficial pride and inspire us with perpetual confidence in 
God and man, to w^hom through Jesus Christ, our Lord, be 
glory in the highest, now, henceforth, and forever more. Amen. 

ADDRESS BY HON. B. D. SILLIMAN, 
President of the Society. 

Gentlemen of The Nezv England Soeiety : Another anniversary 
of the great event we commemorate finds our Society full of 
life, good fellowship, and earnest purpose. Our membership 
is greatly increased, and our financial condition excellent, the 
balance in the treasury being, within a small fraction, twice that 
of last year. 

Our association is in its spirit neither sectional nor sectarian. 
It is not sectional, for New England pervades the land. It is 
not sectarian, for we seek to promote no narrow dogmas, but 
the broad, grand truths and principles of civil and religious 
liberty, of the equality of all men before the law, and the duty 
of education for all men. - These were the truths and principles 
promulgated by our Pilgrim Fathers, and to their enforcement 
we dedicate ourselves. 

But I must not enlarge on this, or any theme, for we rejoice 
to-night in the presence of many distinguished guests from 
abroad, w^iose voices we all desire to hear. As the time in 
which we can do so is limited, none of it must be lost. We 
last year were most unwillingly compelled to forego eloquent 
addresses from three of our then invited guests, because the 
small hours came too soon. I will not risk a like result to-night, 
by consuming any of the intervening time, but we will proceed 



16 

at once with the regular toasts and listen to the wisdom and the 
wit of the eminent gentlemen who have accepted our invitations 
to be with us. 

One of our guests, from another State, who honors us with 
his presence this evening,* has the faculty, in a few words, of 
delineating a character with such accuracy and distinctness, 
that no one can doubt as to the original of the portrait. 

Here is one of his descriptions which I met with some time 
ago ; we shall not be at fault as to its application : 

" The unmurmuring soldier, the magnanimous conqueror, 
the ruler who loved his whole country, undaunted by difficulty, 
patient under misrepresentation, tenacious of purpose, prompt 
and fearless in great emergencies, and in all this, the man who 
never makes a fuss about anything." {Great applause and 
cheers for GENERAL Grant). 

Gentlemen, you have condensed in two words the description 
I have quoted, and in reply to the following toast we shall hope 
to hear the voice of General Grant. 

"General Grant: Whether General, President, 

OR Private Citizen, — Honored and 

Loved by the People." 



SPEECH OF GEN. U. S. GRANT. 

Gentlemen of The New England Soeiety in Brooklyn : I have 
on my right and on my left here, two gentlemen who have 
come from the New England States, and I propose to divide 
the seven minutes of time allotted to me, between these 
gentlemen, to be added to the time to which they are entitled, 
and not to detain you with any extended remarks of my own. 
The only thing that I have to say in regard to your Society is, 
that up to this moment I have been a little at a loss to under- 
stand why you have taken the 21st as the Anniversary of the 
landing of the Pilgrims. When I look at this paper, however, 
and see the names of the speakers, I am no longer at a loss to 
understand it, as there is no doubt at all that your celebration 
of the event, will last through a part of both these days. 
(Applau-ae.) Governor Long and Governor Chamberlain, who 

* Governor Chamberlain, of Maine. 



17 

are here, are both unadulterated Puritans. Unhke most of 
you, they have never left the original land of the Pilgrims, and 
they are still, as their ancestors were, I believe, citizens of New 
England, Simon pure, and I yield to them the remainder of 
the time that you have given to me. (Applause.) 



The Chairman : — The second toast is, 

"Our Colonial Fathers, the Founders of our City 

AND State, — Diverse in Nationality, but 

United in Purpose." 

We shall have the privilege of hearing on this theme our 
learned friend and townsman who to his large stores of historic 
knowledge, added the results of his researches while Minister 
from this Country to Holland. No one can better than he 
treat of the lineage, the character, and the purposes of our 
Colonial Fathers. I have the pleasure of calling, but need not 
introduce to you, the HON. Henry C. Murphy. 

SPEECH OF HON. HENRY C. MURPHY. 

Al7\ President and Gentleuie}i of The New England Society : 
The union of the Dutch and English population of this country 
was a destiny. When the City of New Amsterdam surrendered 
to the forces of the Duke of York, it was, it is true, taken by 
surprise and succumbed only to superior forces. But as a 
conquest of the country, it was a mean and cowardly invasion 
of a dependent people, left powerless by the Fatherland. 
Nevertheless it anticipated only what would have taken place 
peaceably within a few years. New Netherland had not entered 
into the calculation of the Dutch government as a part of its 
empire. It was a mere dependency of the Dutch West India 
Company, settled by them for trading purposes, and had now 
become almost valueless in that respect. It was surrounded 
by English colonists, who had come to this country for a 
different purpose, to build an empire in the Western World, 
the unity of which began to rec]uire and would ultimately 
absorb the whole of the adjacent territory. But the people of 

2 



18 

New Netherland, who were they? Who were those whom this 
great trading company had left in this distant land unprotected, 
and whom the government of the Netherlands did not think of 
sufficient importance to retain under their dominion ? They 
were the hardy sons of toil, who had been induced by the 
promises and pledges of that great company to emigrate hither 
with their families and effects to make new homes. They had 
left Fatherland with sorrow and regrets, but with the hope of 
bettering their condition. They had come to stay and expected 
to remain, for they found it, in the language of one of their 
own New Netherland poets, a 

" Land where milk and honey flow. 
Where plants distilling perfume grow. 
And Aaron's rod ; where budding blossoms blow — 
A very Eden." 
And after the surrender they were contented to remain, 
because, by the terms of the capitulation, they were to be 
protected in their persons, their possessions, and their privileges, 
and the panoply of the common law of England was to shield 
them in their rights. They were a liberty loving people, in 
affairs both of the Church and State. Their fathers had thrown 
off the yoke of Spanish bondage and vindicated their rights to 
religious toleration, and they found in the British Constitution 
abundant guarantees for their protection in that respect. And 
they knew that the neighboring colonists, under whose flag 
they were now to live, were voluntary exiles from their native 
country, pilgrims, and had come here like themselves to stay. 
Hence were these two people, though differing in language, 
customs, and laws, united in a common interest and actuated 
by a common purpose. These were the men who were the 
founders of our City and State. How faithfully they worked 
together in the common cause, history tells. 

It was no easy matter to change the language and institu- 
tions of the colony and to conform them to those which were 
now predominant. But time worked its perfect work, and 
brought with it the day of retribution to the royal arrogance 
abroad. It came and found these exiles from home united to 
resist their aggressors and to assert their independence. In that 
critical hour, such unmistakable names as Herkimer, Von 
Schaick, and Schuyler were enrolled with those of Woodhull, 



19 

Millett, and Clinton, in the cause of liberty, and shed their 
blood in its defense. By a common cause, they became and 
are one nation. 

Mr. President, it was my fortune some years ago to reside 
in Holland, and to have unrestricted access to its archives, 
municipal as well as national. In those of the City of Leyden, 
I was enabled to discover, that the house, though its existence 
had been forgotten, was still standing, in which John Robinson, 
the pastor of the Pilgrim Fathers, who came to America in the 
Mayflower, lived. It is a plain two-story and attic building, of 
the true Dutch type of that day, with a high peaked roof, and 
occuping a twenty-five foot lot. It was interesting to me as an 
American, because it was in this house that the Pilgrims spent 
the evening with their celebrated pastor, in feasting and singing, 
before their departure for New England, at a dinner provided 
for them by their brethren who were to remain behind. Thus 
on the night of July 20th, 1620, was given the first New England 
dinner ever eaten, and therefore, in honor of that event and of 
the man, historically known as the foremost on that occasion, I 
beg, in conclusion, to propose the toast, 

"The Memory of the Rev. John Robinson, the 
Founder of New England." — {Applause^, 



The Chairman .•— -To the toast, 

"The Homes of New England," 

we hoped for warm words from the warm heart of our friend, 
the veteran Statesman, ThurI-OW Weed. It was his intent 
to be with us and to speak with this toast as his text, but more 
than four score years do not harmonize with this night's snow 
storm, and therefore, instead of his presence, we have a letter 
from him which I will beg the Secretary to read. 

letter from MR. WEED. 

New York, Dec. 21, 1881. 
5 o'clock, P. M. 
My dear Silliman : 

I have struggled hard all day to keep my courage up to the 
" sticking point," but with seriously impaired vision, aggravating 



20 

other infirmities I dare not venture out, though the temptation 
to be with you, on an occasion so interesting is ahnost irresist- 
able. All my recollections O'f, and associations with, New 
England and with the sons and daughters of New England are 
intensely interesting. But there is not time to dwell upon these 
cherished memories. If permissible I should be happy to pay 
a tribute on this occasion to a surviving friend, who represents 
the best type of old fashioned New England citizenship: — 
Truman Smith, a veteran in whose life and character, the 
highest and brightest elements of a lawyer, a politician, a 
statesman and a citizen are found harmoniously blended. 
Very truly yours, 

Thurlow Weed. 



The Cliainnan : — Gentlemen, the next toast is, 
" Massachusetts." 

We hope to hear in response to this. His Excellency 
Governor Long, the Governor of the renowned old " Bay State ;" 
— the distinguished, and repeatedly elected, successor of Carver, 
Winslow, Endicott, Winthrop, Bowdoin, John Hancock, Samuel 
Adams, Edward Everett, John Davis, and John A. Andrew. 

I have great pleasure in introducing GOVERNOR LONG. 



SPEECH OF THE HON. JOHN D. LONG. 

I wish, Mr. President and Gentlemen, that on this eve of 
Forefathers' day Massachusetts had some more patriarchal 
representative to bring her blessing and lay it benignantly 
upon the heads of her away-from-home children and children's 
children, so many of whom have gathered at your board. She, 
like many another ancient mother, at this thanksgiving festival 
season of the year, crowds her satchel — it will hardly do to say 
carpet bag now-a-days — {laughter), comes away from the old 
homestead and journeys across country, to take part in the 
good cheer of one of her daughters— certainly this time the 
fairest of them all— the city of Brooklyn, so distinguished for 



^1 

her churches that they have given her a name, and as I know 
from the escort I received in passing through the streets of a 
neighboring but inferior metropoHs {applause), distinguished 
also for the excellence of her military organizations — a city 
more Boston even than Boston herself — and I can give her no 
higher praise. {Applause.) The old lady knows that you young 
people sometimes have a little sport at her expense behind her 
back, make fun of her knitting-work and frills, and laugh at 
her odd mixture of conceits, including the most antiquated 
Puritanism and at the same time the strongest leaning toward 
every new nostrum and notion. She knows it all, for her eyes 
are very bright behind her spectacles. But she knows, too, 
that in your innermost souls you honor her {applause) ; that you 
still look to her cupboard for your best gingerbread and most 
wholesome simples; and that a tender chord trembles from 
your hearts to your eyes at the thought of the breezy hills 
and the cool sea-beaches where she nestled your fathers and 
mothers ; or of her venerable fireside and the great family of 
noble sons and daughters who have clustered around it; who 
from it have gone out into the world carrying with them her 
thrift, her enterprise, and her virtues, wherever they went ; and 
who, though they erect colleges and establish common schools 
like hers all the way to the Pacific coast, and though they give 
a Bryant to your literature and a Garfield to the Presidency 
are yet still all her own. {Applause.) A good many of her 
boys are getting along in years. Phillips, Longfellow, Holmes, 
Whittier, have all passed the seventieth milestone, but although 
their notes are now at their very sweetest, they are no dying 
songs. {Applause.) A short time ago, having occasion to 
write to Mr. Whittier about putting some verses of his in a 
Thanksgiving proclamation, after some selections from the 
Psalms, he replied that /le was entirely content, but he was not 
quite sure whether David, a king and a warrior, would care to 
be found in company with a Quaker and a Republican. {Laugh- 
ter and applause.) Even in this playfulness, it seemed to me 
there was that spirit of liberty and of peace — sub lihertate 
quietcm — which in him and in the others will to the last hour 
kindle in the eye, though the song shall have fainted from the 
lip. Massachusetts has young blood too. She has just given 
to the new South, through the genius and forecast of one of 



33 

her young men, an event which marks and perhaps makes its 
industrial regeneration — the Atlanta Exposition. I have a 
shrewd suspicion, too, that the old lady even contributed her 
widow's mite to the Virginia election. [Applause.) Through 
another of her sons, who is here to-night, she is teaching 
agriculture, even to the great national domain, and the best 
agriculture — that agriculture which lies at the foundation of 
patriotism and liberty, that agriculture which knows no 
antagonism with commerce or manufacture, but is one with 
them. {Applause.) She has' just presented President Arthur 
{applause), who b)' the way, in his short term of service, is 
conquering public confidence with an almost unparalleled 
swiftness {eheers), a judge of the Supreme Court of the United 
States, who, descending from her own chief justiceship, takes 
to his new post great learning, indomitable industry, a pure 
heart and six feet four of New England thoroughness. Nor 
does she despise small things. Without flinching or resorting 
to a draft, she will instantly fill the quota which has just been 
assigned her in the sub-service of the National House of 
Representatives, to wit, one messenger, one page, one laborer. 
{Applause.) With her great mother-heart she has adopted and 
made her own all the wandering children who have come to 
her threshold and knocked at her door. Plymouth Rock is 
their blarney-stone as well as hers. Jonathan and Patrick, 
Fritz, Jean, and Giovanni, are all alike pilgrims of her original 
stock ; and for them and for all that dwell below the skies she 
demands the rights of man, the equality of God's children, and 
the blessings of liberty. {Applause.) These are the funda- 
mentals which she preaches and points, in letters of light, in 
the words and lives of her sons, her Adams and Garrison and 
Sumner and Andrew, — who have so often and so gloriousl}' 
spoken, and who, though dead, still speak her faith. {Applause.) 
As for her daughters, it goes of course without saying that 
there are none nobler in the whole world. They are the 
inspiration of her charities ; they adorn her literature ; they are 
devoted to her service ; and they command respect for her and 
for themselves. {Applause.) 

I did not come here, Mr. President, for the purpose of 
making a formal address, but of bringing words of good cheer 
from Massachusetts. Her folk are happy. Her heart is lighter 



than her purse. Her generosity is large and just. If you 
should burn down, she would build you up again in forty 
minutes. {Applause.) She has a railroad at almost every 
man's back door, although it does not always pay a dividend. 
Horace Mann is still her schoolmaster. She has taken a 
contract, together with certain citizens of the Empire State, 
to reform the civil service of the nation and make it as good as 
her own. She has set her face against intemperance, though 
her Cochituate has just had rather an ancient and fish-like 
smell. She has a soft side for the black man and the red — 
especially the Ponca. She clings to her meeting-houses, and 
yet has the freest mind of her own. Her water courses sparkle 
in the sunshine with the golden profits of the wheels they 
turn. Her industries are her civilization. {Applajise.) May I 
speak of one of her work-shops. I refer to Fall River, which, 
with less than 50,000 inhabitants, has one-seventh of all the 
spindles of the United States, and nearly one-fifth of all in 
New England. Nor on this anniversary night must I forget 
my own county or its capital, that sacred town of Plymouth, 
to which I am bound by ties of ancestry as well as those of 
official lineage. There is no doubt that Samoset has gone, 
although the antiquarians still have the question under grave 
discussion. There is still some dispute whether the Pilgrims 
landed on the 20th,. 21st or 22d, or even whether they landed 
at all. There is not, it is believed, an original Pilgrim left at 
the present time. {Applause.) If the Mayflower is there, she 
certainly runs no regular trips. The old Rock, in fact, is the 
only one of the first settlers of any account that still survives, 
and even that, following the example of the rest of them, is 
now nearly under the sod. Between the hill where sleep the 
dead forefathers, under the very summit from which more than 
two hundred and sixty years ago they saw the sails of the 
Mayflower fade out on her return to England, between the hill 
and the sea, is the life of a generous and busy town, with its 
court-house and churches, and its newspaper and market, with 
its factories for making boots and shoes and cotton cl9th and 
good hempen cordage — which may all good men escape — and 
with its fishing schooners, a little rusty since the Washington 
treaty, which gave $15,000,000 to the Union and stripped New 
England of her fisheries, but yet active enough to make the 



u 

ancient codfish which hangs in the hall of the Massachusetts 
House of Representatives, not altogether an unmeaning 
symbol. 

But it is not becoming that I should speak longer for 
Massachusetts. I am aware that I might perhaps have been 
justified in boasting of her history, her influence, her leadership, 
her names lustrous in war and in peace. Indeed, it is possible 
that in a moment of inadvertence I have mentioned a few of 
them, those especially which she keeps constantly on hand. I 
might have referred to her as just one inch taller than any of 
her sisters, even when she stoops; might have spoken of the 
liberality of her capital and the intelligence and dignity of her 
labor; might have counted the railroads of New Mexico and 
the West generally as the product of her genius; might have 
suggested that the New^ England idea — whatever that is — is 
the ver\' life-blood and muscle of the Republic, and that 
Massachusetts is New England ; might have named those 
famous fields — half forgotten with us and rarely if ever recalled 
— of Concord, Lexington and Bunker Hill ; and might have 
enlarged upon the unfamiliar topic of the character, purposes, 
and virtues of the Pilgrim forefathers. But I have refrained 
from all this. I am not here for that purpose. It would be 
simpl)' insufferable. It is something you would not do in 
New York. The old Commonwealth is altogether too modest 
to have it spoken. Rather, she finds and loves to find her 
glory outside herself, and in the happiness and prosperity and 
civilization of the whole country of which she is only a part, — 
now a small part, — but to which she has always contributed 
and always will contribute her loyal support, the songs of her 
poets, the eloquence of her orators, the wisdom of her states- 
men, the gallantry of her soldiers, the prayers of her saints ; 
and, what is better than all these, the virtues, the character, 
and the manly worth of the great body of her people who are 
not represented by, but who are themselves, her poets, her 
orators, her statesmen, her soldiers, and her saints. Sincerely, 
I thank you for the heartiness with which you have received 
her name, and the great courtesy with which you have wel- 
comed me as her representative. {^Applause long continued.) 



2b 

The Chair Dian : — To our fifth toast which is, 

"The Pir.GRiMs in Holland," 

we will call for a response from one of our guests who, 
(reluctantly no doubt) admits — indeed he frankly confesses — 
that there is no New England blood in his veins — and yet he 
has some virtues. This may be accounted for by the fact that 
he hails from Holland, where the Pilgrims for twelve years 
resided, and inculcated by precept and example those very 
virtues which we concede to him. They were moreover 
learned, witty, wise, and brave. With such antecedents it 
would be strange if he were other than he is. We hail and 
welcome the Hon. Chauncey M. Depew, whom we have 
heard before and whom therefore we wish to hear again. 

SPEECH OF HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 

I have discovered from long observation (applmise), that in 
the interval between an eager appreciation of the material 
interests of himself and the ardent discussion of the social, 
political, and religious questions of the day, there are two things 
a New Englander never omits out of his prayers (if he prays at 
all), and they are, that he may die in his bed, and always have 
an opportunity to enjoy the annual feed on Forefathers' day. 
{Applause.^ I have in my time attended some public dinners. 
{Laughter and Applause^) It has been charged by malicious and 
envious people that it is for economical reasons. {Laughter.) 
I go, because " the noblest study of mankind is man," and you 
see more of the raw material here than anywhere else in the 
world. {LaugJiter.) On St. George's Day I found my English 
brother with the taste of roast beef somewhat vitiated by dis- 
covering in the gravy the Irish question. [Applause.) On St. 
Andrew's Day I go to the Scotch dinner, and assist the 
medical fraternity in extracting fossilized jokes. {Applause.) 
On St. Patrick's Day I go to the Irish dinner, and listen to their 
lamentations over the lack of respect and reverence for the 
ruling classes in this country. {Applause.) And then I go to 
my own St. Nicholas, and rejoice in the fact that it is more 
blessed to give than to receive, {applause) ; and that in welcom- 
ing with broad Dutch hospitality all nationalities, and dividing 



^6 

with them our business and our lands, our own prosperity and 
welfare have immeasurably increased. 

But I go to the New England dinner for the purpose of listen- 
ing to such expositions as Governor Long has just given us ; 
where the New Englander with native modesty wrestles with the 
English language in order to state, in a way not to offend the 
sensibilities of other races, that all there is of glory, strength, 
and prosperity, of progress, civilization and liberty; in a word, 
everything worth having in this world, has come from him, 
{Applause.) There is no doubt that Forefathers' Day is a great 
day. The townsmen of Governor Long celebrate it to-night in 
pork and beans and pumpkin pie, to such an extent that they 
will be thinking in their sleep, that instead of their forefathers 
having come over in the Mayflower, the Mayflower came over 
on them. {Laughter and applause.) The Yankees in Boston, of 
whom he seems to have an opinion mildhvand modestly expressed, 
will be to-night endeavoring, but in vain, to arouse attention to 
their festival, beyond the provincialisms of their surroundings. 
While in New York to-morrow night they will boldly challenge 
the attention of the State, the country, and the world. I am here, 
and pleased to be here to-night, because suburbs have in them 
some of the elemental principles which are found in rhubarb 
{laughter auei applause) — they concentrate and correct all the 
ideas that you find scattered about elsewhere in Yankeedom. 

When I found that I was to respond to the toast, "The 
Pilgrims in Holland," my astonishment was as intense as that 
which was expressed by the telegraph operator when she read 
a certain message under these circumstances: a man received 
an order in the morning to get up a panel and have a motto 
painted in it for Christmas. He was so busy all da}' that he 
forgot the details, and telegraphed to his wife for them. The 
answer came back to him ; " Unto us this day a child was born, 
nine feet long and three feet wide." {Laughter and applause.) 
It will not be improper for me to state that if it had not been 
for Holland there would have been neither Puritans or Pilgrims ; 
for when bigotry and despotism had crushed out conscience and 
freedom everywhere else, they were cherished and protected in 
Holland ; and that little land, which had dyked out the sea, was 
the sole asylum for years of civil and religious liberty. {Applause.) 
The light radiating from her shone into the dark places of 



37 

Europe, and kept alive the hopes of mankind. It was Holland 
that sent out the fleet which kept the Spanish Armada in check, 
till storms had scattered and made it an easy prey to the Eng- 
lish cruisers. But for that, there would have been in Great 
Britain a night of intellectual and moral darkness which would 
have made the Puritan impossible. With this deliverance the 
Puritans lived and throve. It was their peculiarity that they 
could agree with nobody else and frequently fell out among 
themselves. When they reached Amsterdam, though there 
were only four hundred of them, and all in the direst penury 
and misery, yet they found ample time and opportunity to 
dispute about creeds and beliefs. So grave were their differ- 
ences that there would have been four hundred churches, each 
with a single member, but for the pure spirit and lofty zeal of 
John Robinson. He carried a small settlement to Leyden. 
There they passed two years of profitable probation. The 
blessings of religious toleration surrounded them. They were 
simple agricultural folk, but among a free and industrious 
people, they acquired useful trades, and Robinson learned that 
art of printing which had been discovered in Holland, and upon 
which rests the whole superstructure of modern civilization. 
The comforts and amenities of Dutch hospitality softened their 
asceticism. They saw the benefits of universal popular educa- 
tion, and the highest art in Europe cultivated their tastes. 
But on the border line where faith weakens, and courage fails, 
on account of comfort and luxury, Robinson commanded a 
crusade against the forces of nature and savagery, to found a 
a new empire. Their preparation was complete, and with pro- 
phetic vision he saw they were to be State builders in America. 
The ceremonies attending their departure were original and 
characteristic. Robinson preached a sermon which lasted all 
day, and then they were refreshed by psalm singing which con- 
tinued all night, and according to Puritan standards of enjoy- 
ment, of that period, they had a thoroughly good time. {Laughter}) 
As we see here to-night, the methods of their descendants in 
attaining the same end are somewhat different. {Laughter.) 
The next morning they sailed on the Mayflower for New Eng- 
land. One died on the passage, and one child was born, so that 
their number remained the same. But I have noticed this 
peculiarity, almost every Yankee you meet claims descent from 



that child born on the Mayflower. {Laughter.) The ship was 
only sixty tons burden, and yet she carried more furniture than 
could the largest of the Anglo-American fleet of ocean 
steamers to-day. There are twenty millions claiming Puritan 
descent in this country, and every one of them can show you a 
chair, chest, or table, which came over in the Mayflower. 
{Laughter.) When they reached the Massachusetts coast the 
irate grit of the race was made manifest. It had enabled them 
to suffer for opinion's sake. It had sustained their faith in a 
living God and in themselves against poverty and prisons, per- 
secution and death, and now in the cabin of the Mayflower 
with the pathless ocean behind and the bleak and inhospitable 
coast before them, their first act was to frame a Charter for the 
foundation of a State upon "just and equal laws." {Applause.) 
The principle there enunciated established and maintained 
liberty in this country, and in our time, as the result of the 
bloodiest of civil wars, has compelled the whole Republic to 
recognize the equality of all men before the law. {Applause.) 
That Charter was not signed by President, or Captain, or 
Council, but every member of the little community in affixing 
his signature, gave to us that other great element of American 
freedom and progress, the sovereignty and independence of the 
individual. {Applause.) It is true they afterward persecuted 
Quakers and burned Witches, but the Puritans who did these 
things were subsequent arrivals, who had never been in Holland. 
{Laughter anel applause.) The little band which had spent two 
years in Holland and founded the colony, were the leaven of 
Yankee progress. They taught their brethren so thoroughly 
the virtues of toleration, that they now welcome all creeds 
and have raised some doubts about their religion. It is true 
they repaid the hospitality they received in Holland, by over- 
running New York and conquering their hosts, but that con- 
quest was the most beneficent to conqueror and conquered that 
ever occurred. {Applause.) It is true that when Sterne wrote 
the line that, "God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb," he 
had not forseen the Yankee in Wall Street, {laughter,) but it is 
equally true that this same Yankee by his inventive talent, 
energy, enterprise, adaptability and genius, has done more than 
all others to make this not only the richest and most prosper- 
ous, but the freest and most powerful of Nations. {Applause.) 



29 

TJic Chairman : — Our next toast is in few words, 

" New England." 

This is a vast theme — but the very incarnation of New Eng- 
land is with us to-night, and we invoke him to its consideration. 
It is our privilege to call on the Rev. Mr. Beecher. 

SPEECH OF REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

There is no other contest I enjoy beholding so much as to 
hear different nations tell which of them has been foremost in 
the contest for liberty. And when the representatives of the 
various European nations come together, I like to see — I like 
to hear — France tell what she has done, Germany what she has 
done, and Holland what she has done. And it gives me courage 
at last to tell a little of what New England has done. 

The age in which Holland showed her great light, was an 
age that was pouring oil into more lamps than hers ; one in 
which intellect broke at last and began to lead, seemingly, the 
nations toward the rising of the sun. And if you look over 
the world to-day, there is scarcely a nation of Central Europe 
not stirred by this resurrection trump to the intellect of man- 
kind. What should they do with this intellect? All Europe 
was thralled. Church fetters, and social fetters, and the various' 
fetters of nobility and cast held them all. 

They forged the arrows of light on the anvils of Holland, 
and France, and Germany, but there was no bow to send the 
arrows home ; and God looked all around to see what should 
be done with these silver arrows that were being forged, but 
there was only one land where the oaks grew tough enough to 
form the bow to send the arrow home, and that was old Eng- 
land. She dominated the empires of the then world, as 
America does to-day. 

I boast then — and there is not another city on this continent 
where it is more fit that we should boast, and where their honor 
and ours is combined, where the Dutch and the Yankee are so 
nearly at one, as this very City of Brooklyn, that has for its city 
flag, the sublimest flag known on the face of the globe — not the 
United States flag which is barbaric only by the flag of the 
City of Brooklyn, no double-headed eagle, no twining serpent. 



30 

simply this motto and symbol, " Right makes might ! " {Applause) 
and with such a flag as that, we have a right to trace the history 
of these men and these institutions which sprung from the 
loins of no man, but from the Heart and Soul of Almighty God. 
And when 1 speak of the Puritans, I know perfectly well 
that they were not theorists ; they were not philosophers ; they 
never sat down to write addresses. They had but just one 
theory — that every man before God was a man, with a right to 
himself and to open himself; that was the whole theory. They 
had no splendid Utopian idea of a republic drawn out, they 
had no Platonic theory of life, but simply the declaration, I am 
a man because Christ is in me, and I have a right to everything 
that makes manhood. Contrast this with Prudhomme and 
Fourrier and other socialists who eternally sit, and who eternally 
never lay an Oi^^. {Lattg/iter.) They had simply the innate, 
intense, and ineradicable sense of the right of a man to himself 
before God and his fellowmen. And in that spirit they came 
to New England ; not to build air castles and reform political 
theories. They came here only to be free and to secure to all 
their posterity freedom here. And out of that simple consid- 
eration of the inherent dignity of man as a child of God, out 
of that grew New England. They sat down there and opened 
school houses, they sat down in New England and built 
churches, and made laws that should suit their consciences and 
the rights of the individual. They had no such forecast as we 
now have back-cast. (Laughter.) They did not anticipate the 
future any more than we perfectly read the past, but out of 
that little leaven grew all the institutions of New England. 
Taking the best things that had served old England, they 
brought out such as served them — that was a good deal ; such 
as did not, they left behind, and that was a good deal more. 
You call them "State builders." You never hit it more per- 
fectly in your life. Though that was not their trade, yet, like 
the universal Yankee, they could turn their hand to almost any 
trade when the time came. They scarcely, like the Jews, 
ever separated patriotism from religion. Now we have had a 
great many people who have tried to build States. A good 
many tried it before they came. There were the mound 
builders. No doubt the mounds were built for political history, 
but the mound builders are not to be found. There were the 



31 

Aztecs, the temple builders of Mexico, with an astonishing 
development of a certain civilization. They have left no 
history, nothing but a memory. Then the Spanish undertook 
to colonize, and they have left South America what she is. 
The French undertook to colonize, and as they were when they 
landed at Quebec, so they are to-day. 

They have not sprouted, nor has one branch grown from that 
day to this. They went West through Indiana and Ohio, and 
it is perfectly ludicrous to hear how they took saws and cut 
down trees, taking four days to cut down one good sized tree. 
They hacked and hewed all day and fiddled and danced all 
night. They tried it in Florida and Louisiana. All the nations 
of Europe, pretty near, tried their hand at it, even the Dutch 
at New Amsterdam ; and they were swallowed up at one 
mouthful. But no harm came of it, there was no violence 
done them, for there was no resistance. We took them, married 
their daughters, and so subdued them. There is only one 
nation on this continent, and that is New England. There is 
not a State nor a Territory whose constitution to-day, laid along- 
side the New England constitution, varies one-tenth of an inch 
from its fundamental principles. Their essential laws, their 
constitutions, are identical. New^ England has built America. 
You may like it or not like it, there are the facts. And we are 
not here to celebrate New England in any sense of making a 
provincial celebration. Where is New England ? Wherever 
New Englanders live, from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic 
Ocean ; from the Northern lakes to the Mexican Gulf. We 
are celebrating the whole country. We are the Grandfathers 
of every State in the Union, and this is a national gathering, 
and therefore a family gathering. 

There is a great deal more important question — Are we 
going to maintain what our Fathers received ? Are the children 
worthy of their fathers? I say they are. {Applause.) You and 
I will leave ourselves all out, and settle this matter impartially 
(looking at Judge Tracy) as if we were judges upon the bench. 
I hold that the industry of New England has not gone out, 
except to all the ends of the earth. The old settlers of 
New England lived on rock and ground granite, and really 
committed burglary on nature to get a living out of it. You 
don't know anything about industry, }'ou don't know even as 



32 

much about it as I do; for I used to get up at four o'clock in 
the morning at this season of the year to do the chores and 
make the fires. I used to break out the roads with the oxen to 
break a path in the snow, before the horses could tread the path 
they broke. I used to go two miles to school, and used to sit 
on Sundays in a church in which they thought that a fire was 
a sacrilege. I used to live where the old fire-place would hold 
logs ten feet long, which required two men to roll them in. 
You were not brought up in that way, I was. I know what it 
was to work. Did you ever hoe potatoes on a hillside just after 
the alder bushes had been cut off ? (A voice — " Yes, sir ! " ) Mr. 
BcccJier : I am glad there is one real Yankee here. {Laughter.') 
I have. 

Did you ever have but one single holiday in all the Summer's 
vacation, and that the 4th of July? I have. Were you ever 
shut up in your door-yard and not allowed to go down town to 
see the training? I was. One of the great sorrows of my life, 
that never can be lifted from me. was to hear the bass drum 
down in the village, and have a father who was so solicitous 
for the morals of his son, that he Avould not allow him to go 
out of the yard to see the soldiers train ! {Laughter.) We 
have two sons of New England here that know more about 
soldiering, but then they have descended a good way. 

The industry of New England has not ceased. All the 
most fertile enterprises on this continent, and almost all that 
exist in every part of the globe, have in them either the capital 
or management of New England men, and the commercial and 
manufacturing interests of this continent reflect honor on the 
posterity of the Puritans and the Pilgrims. 

When it was sought to inaugurate a dynasty and an 
aristocracy, and make slavery essentially the master of this 
country, it was the spirit of New England that resisted that 
despotism and that tyranny. /\nd so was it recognised, that it 
was actually in the council of Southern men to dissolve the 
Union and re-compose it, leaving New England out. A greater 
honor never was conferred upon New England than that. When 
the war broke out — I shall leave my friend on the left to speak 
of that — when our very best men, in every walk in life answered 
their country's call, the first soldier that went through here 
was a son of New Enijland. 



There was one remarkable incident that happened in Balti- 
more, that I recall : When the Massachusetts Sixth was there 
and being mobbed, and stood for a long time perfectly patient 
till their officers commanded them to fire, a long Yankee — who 
had stood watching this crowd and saw that the poor rufifians 
round about were merely the tools of the respectable scoundrels 
standing way across the square on boxes and barrels — stepped 
out from the ranks and drew his bead and sent a bullet through 
one scoundrel's heart, and knocked him like a pigeon off a 
branch. In Baltimore I heard the other side of that story, 
when a clergyman of that city told me, " We lost a good deal 
out of our church that day." " Ah ? " said I, " How was that ?" 
"Well, one of the class leaders of our church was down there 
looking on. He stood on a box on the other side of the 
square ; he was not amongst the crowd at all, but a stray bullet 
came across the end of the square and shot him ! " (Laug/itcr.) 
He was one of those broadclothed scoundrels, with a gold 
headed cane, surrounding those poor fellows, and ought to 
have been shot. 

Afterward there came up the question of Repudiation, and 
the spirit of New England rose against it and put that down 
as a fatal heresy all over the country. 

And when the question of the redemption of the currency 
came up, the New England conscience and spirit showed itself 
again, and that question has been fortunately settled for honesty 
and for good morals. When the New England spirit is rife in 
any community, it respects the law, it respects government, it 
respects parties. But there is that same plucky personal 
independence, and when the managers of parties forget that 
they are the servants of the people, and decree that the people 
shall do as they want to have them do, instead of their doing 
what the people want to have them do, the old New England 
pluck rises up against it, and they " bust the machine," and 
elect to the magistracy of every city where this takes place, the 
man who expresses the will of the people. I think we may 
say therefore that the spirit of liberty, essential in Religion and 
in Philosophy, the spirit of civil government, the spirit of 
enterprise, inhere in the posterity of New England ; that we 
have come into a larger place, and that we are carrying on the 
great Avork inaugurated by our fathers, on a continent and not 
3 



34 

in a province. I think we may say that the glory of New 
England is not alone in the institutions that they founded and 
gave to the continent, but her glory is also in that posterity 
which has descended from them, and which is thoroughbred, 
and that carried with it the heart, the conscience, the will and 
the power of the fathers of New England. {Prolonged Applause}) 



The Chair }naii : — The next toast is, 

"The Memory of Garfield." 
This toast was drank standing, and in silence. 



At the request of the Chairman, Mr. pRED Steins sung with 
great acceptance the well known hymn of Mrs. Hemans — 

"The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers." 



The Chairman : — We had hoped that on the theme of 

"Our Country," 

we should have the great satisfaction of hearing the able, 
distinguished, and eloquent Senator, the HON. GEORGE H. 
Pendleton, of Ohio ; in whose high aims and pure purposes 
the country confides. In reply to our invitation he expressed 
the wish, rather than the expectation, that he could be with us 
to-night, but in the end he found it impracticable. We will 
hope to hear him on a future occasion, and let us now drink 
THE HEALTH OF THE HON. GEORGE H. PeNDLETON. 

The toast was cordially received and drunk. 



The Chairman : — When in the early part of the Rebellion a 

■graceful and scholarly young Professor of Bowdoin College 

passed on from Maine, with his regiment of giants, to the great 

conflict, we wondered whether fame or a bullet would be his 

fate. An abundance of both were his allotment. His gallantry 



35 

and skill on all occasions, and eminently at Gettysburg!! and 
Cold Harbor, placed him high in rank. While desperately 
wounded at Petersburgh he was promoted on the field by 
General Grant to the rank of Brigadier-General (" the solitary 
instance in the history of the army"). He was subsequently 
brevetted as Major-General by President Lincoln, and " was 
directed to receive v/ith his troops the formal surrender of Lee's 
army on the I2th April, 1865." At the end of the war he was 
twice elected Governor of Maine. The control of the State 
was afterward entrusted to him in a critical hour of almost 
revolutionary discord, and he has since returned to his first love, 
Bowdoin College, of which he is now the President. A gentle- 
man with such a record may well be called upon to discourse 
of our toast : 

" The State, the Army, and the School. ' 

I have the pleasure of introducing PRESIDENT CHAMBER- 
LAIN, of Bowdoin College. 

SPEECH OF GEN. J. L. CHAMBERLAIN. 

Mr. President : I come from a State whose beginnings were 
not so heroic as those we celebrate and thank God for to-night, 
a State that has had more place in history than she has had 
name. But she was there at the beginning. The eloquent 
speeches we have heard have driven what I had to say pretty 
much out of my mind, but you may perhaps indulge me in 
some reminiscences of history which they have suggested. 

The first voice that greeted the Pilgrims at Plymouth, was 
a. voice from Maine. Governor Long will allow me to remind 
him that the noble Indian Chief who startled the Pilgrims with 
his greeting, " much welcome. Englishman," was Samoset, Lord 
of Pemaquid, a sea point of Maine, the capital at once of 
Indian and English jurisdiction in the East. 

And, sir, in accepting your hospitalities to-night, I may be 
pardoned if I pride myself a little on standing in a representative 
capacity, — and returning a neighborhood call. For when your 
heroic little band at Plymouth in that hard winter of 1622, 
beset by foes in all the elements of nature and near to famish- 
ing, sent forth their little shallop in quest of food, it was to the 
English people on the shores of Maine that it turned its prow, 



36 

and there they found welcome, and full supply free of payment, 
and pledges of future good will. I return that call and tea- 
taking to-night, and renew the greeting — or rather you renew 
it, with an amplitude of bounty which certainly well makes up 
the arrearage of 260 years ! 

Another thing makes me feel at home. Years before the 
Puritans set foot on the shores of Massachusetts Bay, the 
Pilgrims of Plymouth held possession and jurisdiction at two 
important points in Maine, with both of which I have been 
familiar from boyhood. At Castine on the Penobscot the 
sword of Miles Standish was making niigJit right ; and there 
was a famous spot on the Kennebec where John Alden knew 
how to speak a word for himself if nowhere else. We began to 
have quite a little history down there till the Massachusetts 
colony came, — and saw, and, I need not say, conquered ! They 
saw down there either something they didn't like, or did like, 
and in either of these cases, as we well understand, Massachu- 
setts couldn't keep her hands off. She extended her protecting 
arm over Maine, and no more was heard of it in history for 
150 years ! 

Maine had the first chartered city in America, Georgiana, 
now York, founded in 1641 ; but for all that, she was left out of 
the famous New England confederacy of 1643, because, as 
Governor Winthrop tells us, she was not sound on the ministry ! 

The tables were well turned however. When the Province 
of Massachusetts Bay was organized under the charter of 
William and Mary, she had to go to Maine for her first Governor. 
Sir William Phipps. And she has not got through that busi- 
ness yet. She came to Maine for John A. Andrew, the war 
Governor. She has come now again, and has just returned a 
son of Maine to that honored chair, by 50,000 majority. I 
believe, of course, the Governor did not want to confuse his 
mind or yours by affirming in his eloquent speech that he was, 
or was not. Long from Maine. {Laiig/iti'r.) But I assure you 
both those propositions are true I But he had a wise prescience 
as a boy. We are lavish of Governors in Maine. I have known 
of four or five in ten days. And now we have lately discovered 
that we have eight all the time, — sort of composite apocalyptic 
character, of which the council furnish the seven heads, and the 
Governor the ten horns I {Laus-Jitcr^ 



37 

Well, our ambitious lad thought Maine wasn't a good place 
for Governors. His thoughts took a good direction, 
"A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, /cw^<,'- thoughts." 

{LmigJiter.) 
It is Longfellow Who says that. I don't blame the Governor 
for claiming Longfellow for Massachusetts. He is too good 
an orator to spoil his climaxes by telling you the great poet 
was a Maine boy, and that Bowdoin fitted him for a Harvard 
Professor ! Well, they both know where to be born to get 
their genius, and where to go to let it shine. 

Now, Mr. President, the moral of all this is, that you must not 
look for the honorable history of Maine under that article in the 
encyclopedia. Look for it rather wherever in the world any- 
thing is going on, or anything is to be got hold of. Those people 
don't narrow their spirits within the bars of dicuih and tunvi. 
They take a wide airing under the ;////// Jnniiani alioiuvi sky. 

Perhaps I ought to say something, before I sit down, upon 
this toast which you have set on a tripod here before me, "The 
State, the Army, and the School." There is one central idea 
to-night, and it is the Founders. I suppose the toast here is a 
link binding back to the Pilgrims, and well may it be so. The 
State : — Sir, wherever they learned it, whether in old England, 
or old Holland, or between the old Bible covers, this thing is 
true, that the most advanced principles of political organization 
recognized by the civilized world to-day, were anticipated by 
these Pilgrim Fathers 260 years ago. The germs of civil liberty, 
warmed as they were to life in the light of a free word of God, 
came to blossom here two hundred years before they fairly did 
anywhere in the old world, where that word was for the most 
part doled out under royal or ecclesiastical regulation. I believe, 
sir, that the two elements represented by the Pilgrim Fathers 
and the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay, taking them both 
together, taking liberty on the one hand and loyalty on the 
other, were the two things that entered most deeply into our 
constitution and character. This balance of the two great powers 
of liberty and law marks and makes us what we are. It will 
not be amiss to recall to-night the fact that the Puritans and 
Pilgrims did not altogether harmonize at the beginning. Indeed 
their doctrines, so far as Church and State relations went, were 



38 

diametrically opposite. One wanted to separate Church from 
State — they were Separatists ; the other wanted Church and 
State " complanted together" — a Bible commonwealth, vesting 
not in the common laws of England, but in the Mosaic code. 
The fathers of Plymouth desired not a theocracy, but a New 
Testament Republic. I am not going too far into that matter 
— this is not the time ; I only wish to point out that the Pilgrim 
Fathers were the only people under the heavens to whom the 
Puritans ever surrendered. They did surrender to them — they 
did abandon their narrow notions and took the broader platform 
of the Pilgrims. 

Our political character as a people combines these two 
generic principles : the Puritan's loyalty, his stern allegiance to 
the right, and the free and tolerant spirit of the Pilgrims. So 
in our Constitution is "compacted together" by this frame 
work — law guaranteeing liberty, and liberty illuminating law. 
{Applause^ 

Well, sir, just a word for the Army — though how can I 
speak for the army in such a presence ? (looking at Gen. Grant), 
But there is one thing about it. these Fathers were soldiers, 
every man of them. {Applause) Every man, you know, when 
he went to " meeting," had his Bible under one arm and his 
baby under the other, and his gun on his shoulder. 

Our regular army has an honorable and a necessary place. 
It is the treasury of military art and science, the nursery of 
ofHcers and commanders, the school of discipline for the soldier. 
But when the crisis comes, when the right is to be defended, 
when the life of the people is threatened, then it is for us to 
precipitate ourselves into this form and mould of the regular 
army. The people rising in their might for their own defense 
— that is the real army of the United States. {Applause.) 

As to the Schools, — that was about the first thing the 
colonies did— to set up the school. And then the college. I 
will say for Massachusetts that the first thing she did when she 
took possession of Maine was to indict all the towns for not 
having schools, as the law directed. And the next thing was 
to establish one supreme test of loyalty, and that was a readi- 
ness to contribute to Harvard College. {Laughter.) One 
William Wardwell, who made the unregenerate reply, " that he 
doubted whether that was an ordinance of God," was straightway 



39 

arraigned before the court, and I doubt whether any one would 
fare much better to-day for such a heresy. Look now, at that 
white-crested wave on the outer edge of civihzation as it rolls 
West and South — the Common School. Look at the two 
youngest Colleges — Colorado and New Mexico — like light- 
houses on the Rocky Mountains — one of them at Santa Fe, 
perched up there twice the height of Mount Washington. The 
same spirit set them there, that beaconed the Atlantic shore 
two hundred years ago. Two young men from Maine, and 
from Bowdoin, are planting those Seminaries of light. 

Well, sir, I conclude with this, — that these ideas; which you 
have embodied in this sentiment, are certainly the three great 
ideas by which our fathers built. There was the State, incipient 
in the town-meeting. There was the Army, in the militia. 
There was the School to train the mind. One other thing I 
add — that was at the bottom — the Bible, which revealed men 
to themselves. These are the four foundations of American 
character. On these our institutions stand, solid and square, 
like that altar (Mr. Beecher must help me out if I get lost in 
my allusion) which Solomon built in front of his magnificent 
temple, plumbed by the North Star ; four-square, fronting North, 
South, East, and West. So we stand, solid on the four great 
great principles, Religion, Litelligence, Self-government, and 
courage to defend the Right ! {Applause.) 



The CJiairmaii : — Gentlemen, the next toast is, 

"The New England Farmer," 

and for comments on this subject we will call on another son 
of Massachusetts, who, long conspicuous, useful and honored 
in the public councils, has also rendered great service to the 
country, alike by his teachings and practice, in improving the 
cultivation of our mother earth; and who, as you know, holds 
at Washington the position of Couunissioiier of Agriculture, to 
which he was appointed by President Garfield. He adds science 
to practice, and his own teeming fields attest the value of their 
union. I have the pleasure of introducing to you the HON. 
George B. Loring. 



40 

SPEECH OF HON. GEORGE B. LORING. 
Mr. President and Gentlemen of The New England Society of 
Brooklyn : After the elaborate, and comprehensive, and compli- 
cated toasts which have been bestowed upon those who have 
preceded me this evening, I find it difficult to understand why 
1 should be brought down to a single point, to respond not to 
the agriculture of the United States but to the New England 
farmer, unless it is that, at the present time, he holds the most 
conspicuous agricultural place in this country. I know of no 
other reason why he should be so prominently selected. The 
farmer, of all men 1 and agriculture, of all professions ! Why 
has not some one spoken here for the New England lawyer, 
and told his characteristics? For the New England physician, 
with his deliberate practice, and the great service he renders 
his country continually, during his drives over the dear New 
England hills, which you leave behind you when you come to 
the balmy skies of New York and Brooklyn? Why has not 
the New England Merchant told you how he succeeds in 
getting a living in this foreign land? Why select the New 
England farmer, of all men on earth, when you know that he 
farms but a comparatively small portion of the great agricultural 
regions of the United States? I am not, by any manner of 
means, inclined to confine myself to him alone ; in fact on this 
occasion I cannot, but 1 propose to discuss the agricultural 
pilgrim at Plymouth from a spiritual and a^sthetical, as well as 
from a material and practical point of view. 

I have heard the Pilgrim discussed in every conceivable 
manner to-night and at other times. I have heard him analyzed 
as a theologian whose doctrines have liberalized the whole 
world of religious thought, building up the broad church of 
this land, and establishing an independent theology which 
comprehends all creeds, and established that religious faith, 
out of which has sprung that great American Christian Church 
which we all love and worship, and which we wander away 
from for an hour, and return to as a child returns to his 
mother— one Christian Church based on the liberal doctrines 
at Plymouth. The Pilgrims have been immortalized as 
reformers, whose principles of State and society, and whose 
demand for civil and religious freedom have inspired every 
heroic event in the histor\- of the American Republic, from 



41 

the Declaration of Independence to the Emancipation Proc- 
lamation. They have been admired as the diligent, thoughtful, 
and scholarly, friends of William Bradford, the scholar, who 
coming over with the Pilgrims, infused the light of his learning 
into the life of that Plymouth Colony, which was by no means 
ignorant and unlettered. They were filled not only with 
religious faith, but with a radiant, intellectual light. 

I have heard the Pilgrims discussed as the brave soldiers of 
Miles Standish, who established for themselves a military 
renown that has been handed down to this generation, and has 
given us the military position which we hold amongst the 
foremost nations of the earth, and inspired the great Captain 
[looking at Gen. Grant) of our day to save his country from 
disruption, and to preserve to us our great inheritance. 
{Applause.) Their personal character has been presented, and 
in every way it challenges our admiration for their fidelity and 
zeal and high purpose. 

Now, I have heard this heroic band discussed in all these 
various forms, but never, until to-night, has any man here or 
elsewhere been called upon to discuss them in their agricultural 
character as cultivators of the earth. Now, pardon me ; but 
they were the most brilliant farmers on earth ; overcoming, as 
tillers of the soil, in the garden of the Lord, all spiritual 
difficulties that came before them, and conquering the hard 
inhospitable shore on which they landed, with industry and 
zeal. Now, sir, let us look at these men in their first effort in 
the work of cultivation upon which as farmers and reformers 
they entered. How they toiled in the vineyard of the Lord, 
in season and out of season! How they strove and labored 
for the rights of men in Church and State, laying down those 
doctrines, which as Brownists and Separatists they proclaimed 
in season and out of season, and which by their devotion and 
power they infused into all the theologies of their own day, 
and into that religious thought we now enjoy. When they 
took up their home in Holland they went there to cultivate 
the vineyard of the Lord, in order that you and I and all men 
might enjoy the great fruit thereof. We have been told 
to-night, that in Holland they learned their principle of civil 
and religious freedom. But they went there, defying all the 
power of the throne of England, to fix themselves as free and 



42 

independent citizens, declaring this to be their duty even under 
the sceptre of Calvin himself. They believed, with the great 
historian, that every blow struck at the tyrant makes the free 
citizen everywhere. And so on board the Mayflower these 
cultivators of men's souls, these servants of the Lord, formed 
the first civil compact which established human government 
on the consent of the governed, and a Church whose corner 
stone was freedom of conscience in matters of religion. Can 
you point me to a more diligent, untiring, and defiant body of 
men than they were in their holy work, passing bravely and 
patiently through the horrors of that stormy voyage, and 
landing on a shore hardly less inhospitable than the stormy 
sea itself, to establish the right of all people to found their 
own government, and choose from their own body whom their 
rulers should be. On American soil they elected the first 
magistrate called to power by the voice of the people, placing 
John Carver at the head of the long line of executive rulers 
who have been called to power on this continent, and who 
stands first on the pages of history as the ruler who, stepping 
from the ranks of the people, set a good example to his 
successors, and established for the first time the choice of an 
executive officer by the people themselves. In their own land, 
and on American soil, what did those toilers not establish? 
All their sacrifices were for the benefit of others and nothing 
for the benefit of themselves, except the immortality of being 
remembered in all time and history. These are the men ; 
these are their services, and this the course of their great labor, 
in which, as servants of the Most High God, they "trod the 
wine press alone." Not broken nor bowed down by the suffer- 
ings that encompassed them, they toiled on, and nowhere on 
this broad continent did they find that sympathy, which makes 
this Union now the fraternal bond it is. Their feeble colony 
was a refuge for the oppressed, and the nursery of the school- 
house and the meeting-house, whose fruits are now brought 
forth on every soil which bears, and under every sky which 
overhangs, an American citizen. And in this great service the 
Pilgrims acted with a sense of their hard duty and great 
responsibility. From, no associate colony did they find encour- 
agement and strength. Not the ecclesiastic-civil John Endicott, 
with his sturdy commingling of Church and State on a Puritan 



43 

platform; not the classical and episcopal John Winthrop; not 
the mild and genial Stuyvesant ; not the bold and chivalrous 
Oglethorpe ; not the liberal and catholic Calverts ; not the gay 
and festive John Smith; not Namkeag, nor Massachusetts Bay, 
nor New Amsterdam, nor Georgia, nor Maryland, nor Virginia, 
gave aid and comfort to this devoted band engaged in their 
self-sacrificing and self-asserting work. 

In separating from the Church of England as they did, they 
left all the ecclesiastical organizations of their day, and entered 
upon the work of the Lord with new methods, new purposes, 
and a new understanding of that spiritual culture out of which 
the modern Church has sprung. Into their celestial garden 
and vineyard they carried a deep sense of individual right, and 
in all their spiritual and aesthetic labor they recognized the 
soundness of individual possession and individual responsibility. 
As was fitly stated in a neighboring city long ago by one of 
the most illustrious sons of Massachusetts, they had "a Church 
without a Bishop and a State without a King." This is the 
spiritual agriculture of the Pilgrims. 

And so it was in their material and practical agriculture. 
Removed by the hard and inhospitable face of nature about them 
from the temptations of large landed estates, they founded their 
narrow and simple farming upon such a division and subdivision 
of the land that every citizen might be a freeholder. They 
established a system of citizen proprietorship, which with all the 
civil rights and privileges which go with it, constitutes, as De 
Tocqueville has said, the vital and fundamental force of our 
Republic. Leaving behind them the feudal tenure of land, they 
adopted the commercial tenure, which is now the American 
landholder's law and the American citizen's prerogative. 

For this system, with all its social and civil blessings, 
Napoleon distributed the lands in France. This system 
occupies the attention of the great liberal leaders of England, 
and fills the imagination of all those who struggle to pass from 
the dependence of the tenants to the independence of the 
owner. The division of land among free and independent 
proprietors, and the simple record of deeds in an authentic 
register, is the work of the Pilgrims of Plymouth — a service 
in which, as one of the most distinguished conveyancers of our 
day has declared, they were two hundred years in advance 



44 

of their own time. It was the land-holding clergy which in 
early days filled the pulpits, and directed the town meeting, and 
cherished the schools and colleges, and sent a host of powerful 
merchants and statesmen, filled with the faith and strengthened 
by the culture which characterizes the pastor's family, into the 
work of founding our Republic and developing its resources. 
And it was upon the ownership of the land, that the lawyer 
depended for his reward, as a promoter of good order and 
justice in the community. And so in our day we divide and 
subdivide and set the world an example of the foundation 
upon which popular prosperity may rest, pointing the English 
statesman, who boasts of the liberal division of land in the 
United Kingdom, to the myriads of citizen proprietors here, 
who constitute the great bulk of our population. There may 
have been no prize crops at Plymouth, no premium animals, 
no model farms, no farmer sufficiently accomplished to be a 
Commissioner of Agriculture, but there was the foundation of 
this system which has made American agriculture what it is, 
and will develop it to what it may be. 

And now the Pilgrim stands conspicuous in history, for 
having produced, as the result of his labors as a cultivator, in 
the Church and the State, in the field and in counsel, a citizen 
whose individualism is unequaled, whose social organization is 
as wide only as the sea with its innumerable waves, whose 
civil structure can absorb and Americanize all nationalities, 
and whose characteristics are never lost wherever he may go — 
a nationality to which all men tend, and from which no man 
emigrates in hope of a better. And this is the spiritual and 
material agriculture of the Pilgrim at Plymouth. To ail this 
thought and free industry we their descendents are born. Let 
us be grateful to them for our inheritance, and grateful to God 
who gave us the great example and teachings of our fathers. 
{Long conti)iucd and oitltnsiastic app/aiisc.) 



The Chairman: — Our next toast is, 

"The Day we Celebrate." 

We shall be eagerly glad to hear, on this theme, a gentleman 
of whom we have all heard. "It is garland enough to hang 



45 

before any man's door." to say of him that he was a distin- 
guished member of General Grant's staff throughout the War. 
Gentlemen, I have the great satisfaction of introducing to you 
General Horace Porter. 

SPEECH OF general HORACE PORTER. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen : It is said that the celebrated 
French dentist, Le Clure, was appointed dentist to King 
Stanislaus on the very day that the king lost his last tooth. 
I fear I have been appointed to speak to-night at the very time 
that we are in danger of losing the last man from the room. 

You have given me a most overwhelming toast. New 
England history tells us of a revolutionary battle fought on 
Breed's Hill, which was called the Battle of Bunker Hill because 
it was not fought there. I suppose it on the .same principle of 
contrariety of thought and action which characterizes the race, 
I am called on to do honor to a day peculiar to New England 
because I never lived there. I anri not surprised that you 
should call upon some of us from other States to speak for you 
to-night, for we have learned from the history of Miles Standish 
and John Alden, who have been alluded to to-night, that a 
Yankee may sometimes be too modest to speak for himself. 

Daniel Webster is accused of making the remark, that in 
order to make a good speech it is necessary to have a full 
house ; but the Brooklyn Yankee, judging from the exhibition 
to-night, seems to think that to make a good speech it is only 
necessary to have a full stomach. 

Those of us upon whom Providence did not sufficiently 
smile to permit us to be born in New England, often get our 
ideas greatly confused in regard to the two principal events in 
the history of the Pilgrims; first their transfer from Europe to 
New England, and second their transfer from New England to 
Brooklyn. {Laughter.) I believe it is generally admitted in 
this community, however, that the latter movement was the 
most enlightened and satisfactory step in the Pilgrims' Progress ! 
{LangJiter^ You certainly seem to be very much at home in 
Brooklyn, and I see no reason why you should not be, if it be 
true, as has been stated by those patient people who have 
taken the trouble to study the characteristics and peculiarities 
of the race, that a Yankee never seems so much at home as 



46 

when visiting other people. Sometimes we cannot exactly tell 
whether the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, or at Plymouth 
Church. {Laughter.) Knowing as we do, the accommodating 
character of these accommodating and self-sacrificing itinerants, 
we are led to suppose that they landed at several places, in 
order that the inhabitants thereof might share in this rich 
inheritance. 

When we guests are invited to celebrate the landing of the 
Pilgrims in Brooklyn on the 2ist, and their landing in New 
York on the 22d, it would seem to indicate that the Mayflower 
was in these waters, and that it took her just 24 hours to cross 
the East River. But then they did not have the East River 
Bridge in those days. I suppose it was not at that time much 
nearer completion than it is now. {Laughter.) There are many 
things that confuse the ideas of a New Yorker in regard to this 
Bridge. First, we hear that the appropriations are suspended ; 
then that the work is suspended. It was, however, intimated 
to us at the outset, that it was to be built on the suspension 
plan. We have remarked that the people of Brooklyn have 
lately had their hearts turned toward the lofty bridge, and the 
elevated railroads. It is always a matter of remark with us 
when the people of Brooklyn get to setting their affections 
upon things above. {Laughter.) But there was a time when 
the minds of the people of Brooklyn and New England were 
not set on elevated railroads. It was in the days when we 
were laboring under the sanctifying influence of the fugitive 
slave law, when they thought more about the underground 
railroad. When fugitives came North and the New Englanders 
undertook to return them to their masters, they somehow or 
other always bungled it and got their faces the wrong way, and 
started them for Canada by the underground railroad. I 
remember one time an old black woman succeeded in making 
her escape into the free State of Pennsylvania. She at once 
thought that she ought to be regarded as a heroine. She was 
an old woman — no one knew how old. Her powers of masti- 
cation had been reduced to two teeth, one in each jaw, and 
they not opposite each other. The leaf in the family Bible 
was torn out and family tradition was silent on the subject of 
her age. It was generally understood that she was one of the 
seventy-five nurses of George Washington ; who, according to 



47 

tradition, must have been the most nursed man in the country. 
She thought she ought to have free passes to all the charitable 
institutions and be elected an honorary member of all the 
Dorcas Societies. She even felt hurt that she was not elected 
to the Pennsylvania Legislature. She didn't know much about 
that Legislature. But she soon found that Republics were 
ungrateful. She found she even had to pay for admission to 
circuses and side-shows. One day Tom Thumb came there 
and she attended the exhibition, and after the performance the 
showman stated that Tom Thumb would be found standing 
on a chair at the exit door with his photograph for sale, and 
any lady purchasing his photograph would be entitled to a kiss 
from his liliputian lips. The old woman purchased his photo- 
graph and then leaning toward him said: "Now den, honey, 
Lse done buyed one ob yo' puttygraphs, now give de ole gal a 
eood smack!" He drew back and said: "I don't kiss colored 
people." She stepped back, set her eyes on him, and she said : 
"Well, afo' God, I verily believe dat if dere was an individual 
in dis world no bigger nor a pesmire, he would have something 
agin' de colored population !" {Laughter.) Now in those days, 
to the honor of New England be it spoken, she was about the 
only section of the country that did not have something 
against the colored population. 

I have been much enlightened here to-night by the Gov- 
ernors of New England States. We have heard a great many 
things that surprised us and no doubt would surprise even the 
inhabitants of those States. I wonder whether a gentleman, 
of such learning and such cultivation as Governor Chamberlain, 
expected any of the Harvard students I see here to-night to 
be able to understand his Latin when pronounced after the 
manner of Bowdoin. Then we have been told that the 
Pilgrims used to go to church with the Bible under one arm 
and the baby under the other. And yet statisticians tell us 
that the modern New Englanders pay more attention to the 
multiplication of Bibles than of babies. 

And now let me say in conclusion that I, as one of your 
guests, feel very much in the condition of one of Sherman's 
men in South Carolina. They were ordered to ford a river 
which had six miles of swamp on each side of it. They waded 
for about six hours and couldn't find any other side to the 



48 

river. There was a Yankee there. I hav^e always noticed that 
there is invariably a Yankee in every division of an army. He 
finally turned to his comrade and said: " Josiah, I'm blowed if 
I don't believe we've struck this 'ere river lengthwise." {Great 
laughter^ So when your guests look round on the length and 
breadth of hospitality dispensed here to-night, I know that we 
all feel that we have "struck it lengthways." {Loud applause^ 



The Chairman : — Gentlemen, in response to the next toast. 

" Religious freedom then and now," 

We gladly call on an eloquent apostle of " religious freedom," 
— one whose fame is not only *' in all the churches," but in all 
places, — the Rev. ROBERT CoLLYER. 

SPEECH OF REV. ROBERT COLLYER. 
Mr. President and Gentlemen : I suppose you have no idea 
of the good speech I was ready to make an hour ago. {Langhter.) 
I was full of it and bubbling over. I got mad at Mr. Depew 
and stirred up about many things, and gradually felt as if it 
was time for somebody to say something about the origin of 
these Pilgrims and about the old mother land, in which I was 
born and in which I lived the first twenty-five years of my life. 
And if it was not so late I should try to make you a speech 
about that, touching first the right of England by this law of 
primo-geniture and second the right of the children of England, 
"of the grand old county of York, to which I belong to go 
with Nottingham and Lincoln to the resting-place of the 
Pilgrims. I should like also to show you that the most eminent 
of the Pilgrims, Elder Brewster as he is called, was undoubtedly 
a Yorkshireman — not that he was not born in Linconshire; I 
take it to be true that he was a Yorkshireman for the reason 
that I have seen a bill made out when he kept a sort of tavern, 
to a gentleman who had had supper there, and a bed, and a 
breakfast, for which he charged him seven shillings and ten- 
pence. That, with the value of money in those times compared 
with these, would undoubtedly be three times' more than they 
would ever have the face to charge you at the dearest hotel in 
New York, and so he must have been a Yorkshireman. 



49 

I wanted also to speak many things touching the history of 
the Pilgrims and to show you how clearly the splendor of their 
record rests on the strength of their blood as Englishmen, and 
how, we share the grand honor alike, the English and the Ameri- 
cans, the mother and the daughter, and that it is all to be 
attributed, finally, to what we sometimes call Saxon grit. 

Nows that speech would take me about forty minutes. But 
I have been thinking, as I have it here — and asked a friend if 
he thought it might do, that I would cut it short by reciting to 
you a poem I have recited once before in public, and hence have 
some hesitation about saying over again to this splendid 
assembly. It is as follows: 

SAXON GRIT. 

Worn with the battle by Stamford town, 

Fighting the Norman by Hastings Bay, 
Harold, the Saxon's sun, went down 

While the acorns were falling, one autumn day. 
Then the Norman said, " I am lord of the land ; 

By tenor of conquest here I sit ; 
I will rule you now with the iron hand " — 

But he had not thought of the Saxon grit. 

He took the land, and he took the men. 

And burnt the homesteads from Trent to Tyne, 
Made the freemen serfs by a stroke of the pen, 

Eat up the corn, and drank the wine, 
And said to the maiden pure and fair, 

" You shall be my leman, as is most fit, 
Your Saxon churl may rot in his lair" — 

But he had not measured the Saxon grit. 

To the merry green wood went bold Robin Hood, 

With his strong hearted yeomanry ripe for the fray, 
Driving the arrow into the marrow 

Of all the proud Normans who came in his way ; 
Scorning the fetter, fearless and free, 

Winning by valor or foiling by wit, 
Dear to our Saxon folk ever is he, 

This merry old rogue with the Saxon grit, 
4 



50 

And Kett the tanner whipt out his knife. 

And Watt the tyler his hammer brought down 
For ruth of the maid he loved better than Hfe, 

And by breaking a liead made a hole in the Crown. 
From the Saxon heart rose a mighty roar, 

" Our life shall not be by the king's permit ; 
We will fight for the right, we want no more " — 

Then the Norman found out the Saxon grit. 

For slow and sure as the oaks had grown, 

From the acorns falling that autumn day, 
So the Saxon manhood in thorpe and town 

To a nobler stature grew alway. 
Winning by inches, holding by clinches. 

Standing by law and the human right. 
Many times failing, never once quailing. 

So the new day came out of the night, 
■s -s ■«•-;<• -5^ ■»■«■ * 

Then rising afar in the Western sea, 

A new world stood in the morn of the day. 
Ready to welcome the brave and free 

Who could wrench out the heart and march away 
From the narrow, contracted, dear old land. 

Where the poor are held by a cruel bit. 
To ampler spaces for heart and hand — 

And here was a chance for the Saxon grit. 

Steadily steering, eagerly peering, 

Trusting in God, your fathers came. 
Pilgrims and strangers, fronting all dangers. 

Cool-headed Saxons with hearts aflame. 
Round by the letter, but free from the fetter, 

And hiding their freedom in Holy Writ, 
They gave Deuteronomy hints in economy. 

And made a new Moses of Saxon grit. 

They whittled and waded through forest and fen. 
Fearless as ever of what might befall ; 

Pouring out life for the nurture of men ; 

In faith that by manhood the world wins all. 

Inventing baked beans, and no end of machines ; 



ol 

Great with the rifle and great with the axe — 
Sending their notions over the oceans. 

To fill empty stomachs and straighten bent backs. 

Swift to take chances that end in the dollar, 

Yet open of hand when the dollar is made, 
Maintaining the meet'n, exalting the scholar, 

But a little too anxious about a good trade ; 
This is young Jonathan, son of old John, 

Positive, peaceable, firm in the right ; 
Saxon men all of us, may we be one. 

Steady for freedom, and strong in her might. 

Then, slow and sure, as the oaks have grown 

From the acorns that fell on that old dim day, 
So this new manhood, in city and town, 

To a nobler stature w^ill grow alway ; 
Winning by inches, holding by clinches, 

Slow to contention, and slower to quit, 
Now and then failing, but never once quailing, 

Let us thank God for the Saxon grit. 

{Prolonged applause^ 



The Chairman : — Respecting 

"TiiK City of Brooklyn," 

which is our next toast, we hoped to hear from His Honor, the 
Mayor, who has so long and creditably presided over it, but he 
admonishes me that (the hour being late) he prefers that we 
await a response from the gentleman who is to succeed him in 
his hieh office. 



T/ic Chairman: — Gentlemen, we will proceed to another 
toast, 

"The Mayor Elect. — We pledge him our warm 
support, and tender him our best wishes." 

Warmly as we welcome our young Mayor elect, and warmly 
as we wish him honor and success in his high calling, and con- 



53 



fidently as we expect those results, we yet know and must say 
to him, that he commences his official career under a maledic- 
tion, for it is written, " Woe unto you when all men shall speak 
well of you." 



SPEECH OF HON. SETH LOW. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of The Nezv England Society of 
Brooklyn : I seem to be fated to stand in the shoes of Mayor 
Howefl. {Laughter and applause.) Before he left he asked me 
to say a word for Brooklyn. I do not know that I am willing 
to answer for Brooklyn this month. If I can judge from the 
utterances of the newspapers, it would be better to wait until 
after the first of January. And yet it is of Brooklyn that I 
wish to say a single word. I need not say much, because I am 
fortunate, in that, where others have had to speak of Maine and 
Massachusetts, Brooklyn speaks for herself. {Applause.) 

Men are accustomed to speak of her as the third city in 
the Union. So she is in point of size; but she is the first city 
in the Union to-day to make a new departure in the direction 
of city government. All the cities of this continent — all the 
cities of this country certainly — arc turning with interested 
eyes to our city to see what will be the issue of this experi- 
ment ; whether it will be an advance in the right direction or a 
dangerous aberration from right, to place great power in the 
hands of the Chief Magistrate, and to hold him responsible 
for his policy and for the way in which it shall be carried into 
execution. 

It is not hard to trace the influence of the sons of New 
England in this city. Their mark can be found in the churches, 
in the historical society, in the library, in the schools— on 
every hand you can see it ; but more than to any one man we 
owe the opportunity to lead the cities in this new path to a 
fellow citizen, who was born on the other side of the Atlantic, 
but whom Brooklyn honors now, and as the years go by, I 
trust will honor more— the Hon. Frederick A. Schroeder. 
{Applause) But if we did not bring about this opportunity, it 
is given to all of us to share in making it a step forward. 

Think what you have done. You have taken a young man 
out of business walks, and placed him at the head of this City, 



53 

and said to him : " Now, carry it on ; all the responsibility is 
on your shoulders, and we shall hold you to a strict account." 
That is beyond the strength of any man, young or old. He 
must turn to the descendents of New Englanders and ask 
them for their help; he turns to the Germans and asks them 
for their help; he turns to the old Dutch settlers of Brooklyn 
and asks them for their help ; he turns to his Irish friends and 
asks them for their help. And how can you help him, gentle- 
men? You can help him by every encouraging word you shall 
utter. You can help him when he sits in the Mayor's chair by 
coming to him occasionally and showing your interest in him 
and in what he is doing. 

If in the exercise of the great power that is lodged in him, 
he comes to any of you busy men and says, " 1 want you to 
take this department," will you say, "I am too busy," or will 
you answer him, as he answered the City when they called him, 
and say, " I will give up my business to attend to the business 
of the City?" I beg to assure you that the answer that 
Brooklyn will give to the expectation of the cities of the 
country depends upon the answer that he gets to his call for 
help. I ask you to heed it, if it come to any of you. To 
whomsoever it comes I ask them to consider it a sacred call ; 
because, if there is any one direction in which people, have 
begun to lose faith in popular government, it is in the admin- 
istration of large cities. For one I am prepared to stand on 
the virtues of the people — and when I say the people I mean 
the whole people — not only the people on the Heights, but 
the people on Furman Street ; not only the people of the 
Twentieth Ward, but the people of the Twelfth Ward. The 
only time I was asked a question in the course of the whole 
canvass, was on Red Hook Point, and the question was this, by 
a laboring man: "Do you mean to say, Mr. Low, that in 
making your choice of men to administer the departments of 
this city, you will be guided by the same principles by which 
you would choose men to conduct your own business in 
Burling Slip?" And I said to him, "I do." He said, "That's 
all I wish to ask," Could a better question have been framed 
by any man within the borders of this city? Now, gentlemen, 
it rests with your mayor to make his selections ; it rests with 
some within this city to answer to his call. What will your 



54 

answer be? To the best of his ability he will giv^e himself to 
the city and to the cause you have laid upon him ; but I want 
to press it home to every man within the reach of his voice 
to-night, and to every one who may read his words in the 
papers, that the success or failure of this new step, which is 
critical, which is typical, for the cities of our nation, depends 
upon the answer that he gets when he goes to men in this 
community and says to them: "Come into my cabinet and 
help me to conduct this city wisely and well ; help me to resist 
wrong wherever it appears; help me to strive for honesty and 
economy in the public service." 

Mr. President, in the course of the last summer it was my 
privilege to visit Plymouth. While I was there I was presented 
to an aged man by the name of Thomas, who told me that 
when he was young he went to see Granther Cobb. Granther 
Cobb saw Peregrine White's funeral. There were but two lives 
between the first child born of the Pilgrims and the Mayor 
elect of Brooklyn. It is not very far. Are we very far from 
the spirit of those men? And I ask you what would be their 
answer if they were called upon to aid in such a work? And 
I ask of every man who wishes to be worthy of that spirit and 
of the New England name to answer as he knows in his heart 
they would answer. {Applause.) 



The CIiain/icDi : — And now, gentlemen, I grieve to say, we 
reach our closing toast, 

"Our Sister Societies." 

For each and all of them, we feel cordial regard, and desire 
cordial relations. St. Patrick, ever foremost in the field, will 
speak for all of them. We can always and everywhere, rely 
on his warm heart, his strong arm, and his eloquent voice. I 
have the pleasure of calling on P. J. REGAN. Esq., the President 
of the Society of St. Patrick. 

SPEECH OF MR. P. J. REGAN. 

Mr. President and Gentle)>ien of The New England Society : 
I have been directed by the Society which I have the honor to 



55 

represent, to convey to you the most sincere congratulations of 
its members on the excellent condition of your Society. I 
perform that pleasing duty with a great deal of satisfaction. 

Fully recognizing the fact that I stand in the presence of 
men pre-eminently distinguished in the various walks of life — 
of men, many of whose names will for all future time adorn 
bright pages in their country's history, I feel it would indeed 
be a piece of unpardonable vanity and egotism were I to 
attempt at this late hour to occupy your time with any 
lengthened remarks. 

I shall simply thank you, Mr. President, in the name of the 
St. Patrick Society of Brooklyn for the courtesy of your invi- 
tation, and for your genial hospitality. {Applause.) 



At the conclusion of Mr. Regan's speech, all present, upon 
the invitation of the Chairman, joined in singing the Doxology 
which concluded the exercises. 

Doxology — " Old Hundred." 

From all that dwell beneath the skies, 
Let the Creator's praise arise ; 
Let the Redeemer's name be sung 
Through every land, by every tongue. 

Eternal are thy mercies. Lord, 

Eternal truth attends thy word ; 

Thy praise shall sound from shore to shore 

Till suns shall rise and set no more. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 

The following telegram was received from the President of the United States 

a short time previous to the Festival : 

Executive Mansion, 

Washington, D. C, Dec. 19, 1881. 
The Hon. Benjamin D. Silliman, 
My Dear Sir: 

Pray pardon my long delay in acknowledging the receipt of 
your invitation to be present at the Dinner of the New England Society in 
Brooklyn on the twenty-first. It would give me great pleasure to accept it and I 
have delayed an answer in the hope that I should be able to be present, but it is 
now certain that my official duties here will prevent. As Congress will not 
adjourn until Wednesday, my departure for New York will be delayed until the 
evening of that day, which will be too late for your Dinner. Thanking you 
cordially for your kind invitation to be your guest, I am, with sincere regards, 
Very faithfully yours, 

CHESTER A. ARTHUR. 



The following was received from the British Minister. * 

Washington, D. C, i December, 1881. 
Dear Sir: 

I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 28th ult. extending 
to me the invitation of the officers of the New England Society in the City of 
Brooklyn to attend the Annual Dinner on the 21st of this month. It would have 
given me much pleasure to have been able to accept this kind and courteous 
invitation and to have visited the city, but I am sorry to say my occupations oblige 
me to forego the pleasure of meeting your distinguished Society. 

Very faillifully yours, 

[,. SACKVILLE WEST. 
The Rev. A. P. Putnam. 



LETTERS. 

Governor's Island, 
New York Harbor, Nov. 20, 1881. 
My Dear General : 

I have just returned after an absence of more than a week, and find 
your note of the 23d inst., enclosing an invitation to the Annual Dinner of the 
"New England Society in the City of Brooklyn," which I regret that I must 
decline, for the reason that I expect to be absent from New York at the date 
indicated for the dinner. 

I have to-day declined an invitation to the Anniversary of the New England 
Society of New York City for the same reason. 

Will you please express my thanks to the Directors for their courteous attention. 
I am, very truly yours, 

WINFIELD S. HANCOCK. 
Gen'l H. B. Slocum. 



67 

Wilmington, Del., Nov. 25, 1881. 
Dear Sir: 

I beg you to pardon my delay in replying to your invitation on behalf of 
the Officers and Directors of your Society, to dine with them on the 21st day of 
December upon the occasion of their annual celebration. I have been away from 
home, and have been in hopes that I could make my arrangements to come to 
Brooklyn on the day indicated. 

My duties, however, will require my presence in Washington at that time — and 
I have never felt warranted iii making engagements which would entail my 
absence from the Senate during its sessions — therefore, with many thanks for the 
courtesy extended, and regrets that I am not able to avail myself of it, 
I am trulv and respectfully yours, 

T. F. BAYARD. 
Rev. A. P. Putnam. Corresponding Secretary. 



Boston. Nov. 26th, 1881. 
Dear Sir: 

I regret that my engagements in this city render it impossible for me to 
accept the polite invitation of the Officers and directors of the Brooklyn New 
England Society. Thanking them for the very cordial words in which their 
invitation is conveyed, and hoping the day of grateful memories will be one of 
unalloyed enjoyment, I am, dear sir. 

Yours very truly, 
Rev. A. P. Putnam, OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

Corresponding Secretary. 



Headquarters Army of the United State.s, 
Washington. D. C, Nov. 26, 1881. 
My Dear Sir: 

I beg to acknowledge receipt of your kind and most flattering letter of 
November 25, inviting me to the Second Annual Meeting of your Society to be 
held at the Academy of Music on the 2ist of December, and regret that my 
engagements are such as will prevent my being in Brooklyn at that time. I recall 
with much satisfaction the most brilliant intellectual Feast of last year, and 
realize that my loss will be next to irreparable, for I know that you will have 
persons present with whom it is an honor to associate. 

Wishing you a glorious meeting, I am, with profound respect, 

Your friend and servant, 
Rev. A. P. Putnam, W. T. SHERMAN. 

Cor. Secy of The Neiu England Society. 



Fremont, O. , 29 Nov., 1881. 
My Dear Sir: 

It would be a great good fortune if I could accept your kind invitation 
to the Second Annual Dinner of the Brooklyn New England Society. I found 
your First exceedingly enjoyable, and remember my visit to Brooklyn last year 
with many special satisfactions. I hope to repeat it some day, but am compelled 
this year to send with my compliments, my regrets. 

With warm personal regards, I remain. 

Sincerely, 
Rev. A. P. Putnam. R. B. HAYES. 



58 

West New Brighton, Staten Island, N. Y. 
I December, 1881. 
My Dear Mr. Putnam: 

I am very much honored and obliged by your kind invitation to the 
New England dinner, and I am sincerely sorry that I am compelled to deny 
myself the great pleasure of accepting it. Fortunately I am too good a Yankee 
not to know that no single brother of the mystic tie can ever be missed at a feast 
of the Sons of New England. 

Yours very truly, 
Rev. A. r. Putnam, GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 

Corresponding Secretary. 



Senate Chamber, Washington, Dec. 11, 1881. 
My Dear Sir: 

Your very kind note of the 3d came duly. Nothing could give me more 
pleasure than to be present at your New England Society Festival ; but, as I have 
written to your Secretary, I do not think it possible for me to do so. I need not 
say how greatly I cherish dear old N'ew England — her works, and her men and 
women, wherever they may be. I wish you all a happy reunion and a long night 
to rejoice at the streams of beneficence flowing from " the oldest riverhead " of 
civilization and progress. 

In haste, very truly yours, 

GEO. F. EDMUNDS. ■ 
Hon. B. D. Sn.LiMAN. 



State of New York, Executive Chamber, 
Albany, Dec. 13, 1881, 
Dear Sir: 

The invitation of the New England Society of Brooklyn to partake of 
the annual dinner on the 2ist inst. has been retained without response until this 
late day, in the hope that it might be possible to accept. 

It is evident now, however, that this expectation must be abandoned on account 
of the pressure of duties incident to the necessary preparation for the coming 
Legislature. 

Have the kindness to convey to the officers of the Society my cordial thanks 
for their courtesy and my sincere regret that it is not practicable to avail myself of 
their kindness. 

Yours very respectfully. 
Rev. A. P. Putnam, ALONZO B. CORNELL. 

Corresponding Secretary of The New England Society. 



Albany, Dec. 14, 1881. 
Dear Sir: 

Many thanks for your invitation to be present at your Annual New 

England Dinner, at Brooklyn, on the 2lst inst. 

The anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims has become a " Saints day" in 

our National Calendar, always, I trust, to be remembered and honored. It 

typifies the subsequent immigration of the same character, which rapidly followed, 

and by which New England was settled. This great historical event has exerted 



59 

a controlling influence in all that followed, and will continue to do so, in all our 
future history. The descendants of those hardy pioneers are now scattered over 
the whole of this broad land, having carried with them the virtues and energy and 
enterprise of their fathers. They have borne their full share in establishing and 
defending the Government we love and in securing the prosperity and abundance 
we enjoy. 

In the new call to be established on this continent by the commingling 
of the most enterprising portions of all the best races on the earth, — a race that is 
destined to outstrip all others in developing a higher civilization than ever before 
existed, the Puritan element will be leading and prominent. It is no disparage- 
ment of the other intelligent races represented here, whom we have welcomed and 
with whom we have commingled, to claim this distinction. 

I am proud to trace my descent from those early and hardy laborers in the field 
of human progress ; and it would have given me very great pleasure to have joined 
with you in the celebration of their virtues, in your city, which is so largely 
indebted for its unexampled prosperity to the influence of the Puritans and their 
descendants. But engagements consequent ujDon the business of the closing year 
compel me reluctantly to decline. 

With my best wishes, I am, , 

Very truly yours, 
Rev. A. P. Putnam, AMASA J. PARKER. 

Corresponding Secrelary, &^c. 



Concord, Dec. 15. 1881. 
Dear Sir: 

I have the honor to acknowledge the extremely kind and cordial invitation 
of the officers of your Society to attend its Second Annual dinner on the 2ist 
inst. ; and regret very much that it will not be in my power to accept it. 

If the pamphlet which you were so kind as to send me, containing the report 
of last year's proceedings, is to be taken merely as a specimen number of the 
"Annual" which you intend to furnish for an indefinite future, happy is the man 
who is fortunate enough to participate in such a festival ! If riches are not 
exhausted by such profusion, they must be well nigh inexhaustible. 

It is one of the felicities of your position on Long Island, that you are able to 
take a view of New England as a whole, and from the outside, which must of 
course give you an exhilaration of spirits and cheerfulness of temper conducive to 
happiness and long life. On the other hand, one living, as I do, in the heart of 
New England, must find his contemplation of the rest of mankind so depressing, 
that if he is a humane and benevolent person, the privileges of his own fortunate 
lot will hardly compensate him for the misery of those who choose or are compelled 
to live elsewhere. 

But I forbear to say more ; and only hope that on the evening when your eyes 
and thoughts are turned in this direction, no casual reminder of other regions, 
states, or races of men may excite misgivings for the future of mankind. 

Very respectfully and truly yours, 
Rev. A. P. Putnam. E. R. HOAR. 

Corresponding Seeretary. 



60 

New York, December 15, 1881. 
My Dear Sir: 

I have had the honor to receive your polite invitation to the Second 
Annual Dinner of the New England Society of Brooklyn, to take place on 
Wednesday next, the 21st instant, at six o'clock. 

Some days previous to the receipt of your invitation, I had accepted a like one 
to attend the annual dinner of the New England Society of this City to be given 
on Thursday the 22d instant, and I fear that one New England dinner engagement 
is all that I can with safety accept. 

I regret that I cannot be with you and the other kind friends who will assemble 
on the occasion of Forefathers' Day, and the more so, because I once had the 
honor of residing in Brooklyn, and it would be pleasant to renew old associations. 
It is said that the New England character is appreciated by association and 
increased acquaintance with it. I think this may be so, for the men and women 
of that nativity were never held in higher esteem than at the present time. 

I am sir, very respectfully yours, 
Rev. A. P. Putnam. E. D. MORGAN. 

Secretary of the New . -.ugland Society. 



Ithaca, N. Y. , 16 Dec, 1881. 
Dear Sir: 

Returning to the University after a fortnight's absence, I find your kind 
invitation. Nothing of the kind could be more tempting ; but the pressure of 
duties here and elsewhere absolutely forbids absence at the time named, and I am 
reluctantly compelled to decline. Will you have the kindness to present my thanks 
to your associates for this evidence of their good will, and I remain, dear sir, 
Very respectfully and truly yours, 

AND. D. WHITE. 
The Rev. A. P. Putnam, 

Corresponding Secretary of The New England Society. 



Notes of declination and regrets were also received from the Hon. Noah Davis, 
Gen. P. H. Sheridan, the Hon. William M. Evarts, the Hon. Charles J. Folger, the 
Hon. George H. Pendleton, Samuel L. Clemens, Esq., Mr. Charles W. Eliot, 
President of Harvard College, the Hon. John Sherman, Edward A. Freeman, 
LL. D., and others. 



PROCEEDINGS 



Third Annual Meeting 



Third Annual Festival 



The New England Society 



IN THE CITY OF BROOKLYN. 



Officers, Directors, Council, Members, 
Standing Committees, 

AND 

By-Laws of the Society. 



CONTENTS. 



Objects of the Society, ..... 

Terms of Membership, ..... 

Applications for Membership, .... 

Officers, ....... 

Directors, ........ 

Council, ....... 

Standing Committees, ..... 

Report of Third Annual Meeting, 
President's Third Annual Report, 
Proceedings at the Third Annual Festival, 

Menu, ........ 

Address of President Silliman, 
Letter of the President of the United States, . 
Speech of Col. Wm. F. Vilas, 
Hon. W. T. Davis, 
Hon. S. L. Woodford, 
" Hon. Wm. M. Evarts, . 
" Hon. Noah Davis, 

" Hon. A. Q. Keasbey, 
" Hon. Seth Low, .... 

" Hon. John W. Hunter, . 
Mr. John C. McGuire, 
By-Laws, ........ 

Honorary Members, ..... 

Life Members, ....... 

Annual Members, ...... 

Meetings of the Society, ..... 

Form of Bequest, ...... 



PACK 
3 

3 
3 
4 
5 
5 
6 

7 
7 

13 
14 
15 
23 
24 

26 

31 
34 
39 
44 
50 
54 
55 
57 
63 
63 
64 
69 
69 



OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY. 

The New England Society in the City of Brooklyn is incorporated and 
organized, to commemorate the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers ; to encourage the 
study of New England history ; to establish a library, and to promote charity, 
good fellowship and social intercourse among its members. 



TERMS OF MEMBERSHIP. 



Admission Fee, $10.00 

Annual Dues, 5.00 

Life Membership, besides Admission Fee, . 50.00 
Payable at Election, except Anmial Dues, luhich are payable in January of each year. 

Any member of the Society in good standing may become a Life Member on 
paying to the Treasurer the sum of fifty dollars ; or on paying a sum which in 
addition to dues previously paid by him shall amount to fifty dollars, and thereafter 
such member shall be exempt from further payment of dues. 

Any male person of good moral character, who is a native or descendant of a 
native of any of the New England States, and who is eighteen years old or more 
is eligible. 

If in the judgment of the Board of Directors, they are in need of it, the widow 
or children of any deceased member shall receive from the funds of the Society, a 
sum equal to five times the amount such deceased member has paid to the Society. 

The friends of a deceased member are requested to give to the Historiographer 
early information of the time and place of his birth and death, with brief incidents 
of his life for publication in our annual report. Members who change their address 
should give the Secretary early notice. 

Jt^" It is desirable to have all worthy gentlemen of New England descent 
residing in Brooklyn, become members of the Society. Members are requested 
to send applications of their friends for membership to the Secretary. 

Address, 

ALBERT E. LAMB, Recording Secretary, 

'^11 Fulton Street, Brooklyn. 



OFFICERS. 



President : 
BENJAMIN D. SILLIMAN. 



First Vice-President : 
JOHN WINSLOW. 



Second Vice-President : 
CHARLES STORRS. 



Treasurer : 
WILLIAM B. KENDALL. 



Recording Secretary : 
ALBERT E. LAMB. 



Corresponding Secretary : 
Rev. a. p. PUTNAM. 



Historiographer : 
STEPHEN B. NOYES. 



Librarian : 
Rev. W. H. WHITTEMORE. 



DIRECTORS. 



For One Year : 

Benjamin D. Silliman, Hiram W. Hunt, 

George H. Fisher. 

For Two Years : 

William H. Lyon, William B. Kendall, 

Charles Storrs. 

For Three Years : 

John Winslow, Calvin E. Pratt, 

Asa W. Tenney. 

For Four Years : 

Ripley Ropes, A. S. Barnes, 

Henry W. Slocum. 



COUNCIL. 



A. A. Low, 

Alexander M. White, 
S. B. Chittenden, 
E. H. R. Lyman, 
Stewart L. Woodford, 
Benj. F. Tracy, 
Charles Pratt, 
Joshua M. VanCott, 
Henry E. Pierrepont, 
Charles L. Benedict, 



George G. Reynolds, 
Charles E. West, 
Thomas H. Rodman, 
Augustus Storrs, 
Arthur Mathewson, 
D. L. Northrop, 
Henry Sanger, 
W. B. Dickerman, 
H. W. Maxwell, 
Seth Low, 



A. T. Plummer, 
Isaac H. Gary, Jr., 
Wm. Aug. White, 
Thomas S. Moore, 
W. R. Bunker, 
Darwin R. James, 
James R. Cowing, 
A. C. Barnes, 
Frederic Cromwell, 
H. E. Dodge. 



STANDING COMMITTEES. 



Finance : 

Charles Storrs, Wii.mam H. Lyon, 

Gkor(;e H. Fisher. 



■ Cha7-ity : 

Ripley Ropes, Henry W. Slocum, 

Asa W. Tenney. 



Invitations . 
Benjamin D. Silliman, Rev. A. P. Putnam, 

lOHN WiNSLOW. 



Annual Festival : 

William 15. Kendall, Calvin E. Pratt, 

Hiram \V. Hunt. 



Publications : 

John Winslow, A. S. Barnes, 

Charles Storrs. 



THE THIRD ANNUAL MEETING. 

The Third Annual Meeting of The New England Society in the City of 
Brooklyn was held in the Director's Room in the Academy of Music, Wednesday 
Evening, December 6th, 1882. 

Mr. Benjamin D. Silliman, President of the Society, called the meeting to 
order and officiated as Chairman. 

The Minutes of the Second Annual Meeting, held December 7th, 1881, were 
read and approved. 

On motion, fifteen gentlemen were elected members of the Society. 

Mr. William B. Kendall, Treasurer of the Society, presented his annual report, 
showing a balance on hand of $8,780.43, which was, on motion, approved and 
ordered to be placed on file. There was appended to the Treasurer's report a 
certificate signed by the Finance Committee, that the same had been examined 
and found correct. 

The President read his Annual Report, which was as follows: 

PRESIDENT'S THIRD ANNUAL REPORT. 

Gentlemen of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn : It will be a 
sameness, not altogether unwelcome to you, that so much of the Annual Report 
for this year, as relates to the condition of the Society is almost in parallel words 
with that of the preceding year. The Association continues to be eminently 
prosperous and approved ; its membership steadily increased ; and its financial 
condition all that can be desired. It appears by the report of the Hon. William 
B. Kendall, the Treasurer, that the balance in the Treasury on the 28th November 
inst., was $8,780.43, and by the report of Albert E. Lainb, Esq., the Secretary, 
that forty-five new members have been elected within the past year, making the 
total membership four hundred and thirty-one. 

The last Annual Festival (on the 2ist of December, 1881,) was, like that 
which preceded it, most delightful in its good cheer and good fellowship, and 
made brilliant and remarkable by the eloquence and v/it of the eminent men who 
were our guests. 

Short as the existence of this Society has been, it has been most useful and 
honorable. Were it to cease and be dissolved to-day, its career would have been 
one of unbroken good. It has led us, natives and descendants of natives of New 
England, to recur to, and to regard with increased reverence and devotion the 
grand, bold characters, and the moral and political principles and teachings of 
our forefathers ; it has led us to contemplate the good and great influence and 
power exercised, and the results achieved by our race in shaping and perfecting. 



defending and maintaining, the free institutions under which we live. We are 
proud, too, of such representatives, among others of the New England race who, 
as guests, have assembled at our board, as General Grant, General Sherman, Hon. 
R. B. Hayes, President of the United States, President Porter of Yale College, 
President Chadbourne of Williams College, Hon. William M. Evarts, Rev. Mr. 
Beecher, Rev. Edward Everett Hale, Joseph H. Choate, Esq., Governor Long 
of Massachusetts, General and ex-Governor Chamberlain of Maine, now 
President of Bowdoin College, and Hon. George B. Loring, U. S. Commissioner 
of Agriculture ; not to speak of our own distinguished fellow-citizens of Brooklyn, 
of the same stock, who have been with us on the same occasions, and of the other 
very eminent New England men, whom we are to welcome on the 2ist. We are 
proud, too, in numbering among our friends and guests the other honored persons, 
who, though of different origin from ourselves, are with us in the desire, aim and 
determination to promote and protect civil and religious liberty, the reign of law 
and education, and political equality for all men. 

The approaching festival on the 21st of the present month bids fair to be not 
less interesting and distinguished than those that have preceded it. In this 
connection, it may be proper to suggest that it has been found necessary to fix the 
loth instant as the time, prior to which members of the Society alone are entitled 
to purchase tickets for the Dinner, and that after that date tickets will be sold to 
other persons, as well as to members, in the order in which application is made for 
them. Last year, several members, who had delayed procuring their tickets until 
after the seats were taken, were annoyed at being unable to attend the Dinner, 
while persons, not members of the Society, did so. To avoid a recurrence of this 
difficulty, it seems proper to suggest, that members intending to be present should 
apply for their tickets on or before the loth inst. 

A general meeting of the Society was held on Monday evening, 4th inst., at 
the Church of the Saviour, in Pierrepont Street, at which ladies of the families of 
members attended, and at which a very interesting and valuable address was 
delivered by the Rev. Dr. Porter, President of Yale College, on the subject of 
"The Old New England Meeting House." As a learned and accurate record, 
illustrating one of the most important features of New England life and history, 
and much of the manners and ways of the earlier period, it is well worthy of 
preservation in our archives, and of being printed by the Society. 

To the Rev. Dr. Putnam, as a member of the Committee on invitations, we 
are indebted for most efficient and untiring aid in the arrangements for our 
previous festivals, and in much of the preparation for that which is approaching. 
The members of the Society will be pained to learn, not only that we must lose 
his services at this time, but still more that we are deprived of them by reason of 
his impaired health requiring a suspension of labor. It is believed, as well as 
hoped, that his withdrawal from action will be but temporary. 

The sad duty remains of recording the death of nine of our members since the 
last annual meeting. Mr. Noyes, the Historiographer of the Society, has prepared 
the following brief sketches of their lives and characters : 

John Francis Clafp was born in Belchertown, Mass., in 1818, and died at 
his home, 96 First Place, Brooklyn, on the 28th of July, 1S82. 

Educated in Belchertown and Amherst, Mass., he came to New York at the 
age of 16. He was a dry goods merchant for several years, and subsequently a 
successful shipping merchant. He had cultivated tastes, was very fond of good 
literature, and possessed a good library. He was also much interested in the fine 



9 

arts, and being fond of pictures he purchased many valuable paintings, mostly in 
Europe. Mr. Clapp married Miss Susan Brown, of the City of New York, who 
died in 1874. 

He was a quiet citizen, of sterling worth and marked intelligence, and was 
very much respected and beloved. He left a considerable estate. He was an 
enthusiastic member of our Society from the beginning. 

Andrew Smith Wheeler, son of Zaral D. Wheeler and Betsy L. Smith, was 
born in New Milford, Conn., Oct. 16, 1820. 

His ancestors for nearly two hundred years were natives of New England. 
Amongst them he numbered Elder John Strong, of Hingham, Taunton and 
Windsor (1608 to 1699), Thomas Ford and Thomas Dibble, who came over in the 
Mayflower, and John, who came to Dorchester, Mass., in 1630, and. Lieutenant 
Walter Tyler of Dorchester (1630) and Windsor, Conn. (1635). This last was a 
lawyer of some note and made the curious provision in his will of leaving one 
hundred pounds to the next husband of t>is wife. 

Another ancestor, Ebenezer Dibble, was killed by the Indians in King Philip's 
war, at the great swamp fight, Dec. 19, 1675. Still another contributed one 
shilling to the sufferers by the said war. 

His ancestors removed from Windsor, Conn., in 1703, to Danbury, Conn., and 
lived there as millers, farmers and shoemakers, to the time of Mr. Wheeler's birth. 
From his eighth to his fourteenth year he worked in Danbury and vicinity as a 
farmer's boy, but having become fired with a desire to see the city he worked his 
passage by stage to Norwalk, and thence by sloop to New York. 

After a few months of hand to mouth work as a street boy, he procured a 
situation in Van Dyk's mustard mill in Johnson Street in this city. 

He left this to follow his father's trade of shoe making, and when twenty-five 
years of age opened a small shoe store on Atlantic Street near the tunnel. He 
afterward had a large store on Fulton Street, opposite Clinton, and entered into 
the manufacture of boots in Pearl Street, New York. 

In 1863, he left the shoe business and entered the real estate business which he 
continued to the time of his death. 

In 1873, he erected the Wheeler Buildings on Fulton Street near Gallatin Place. 

He died April i, 1882, at Havana, Cuba, whither he had gone to recuperate. 

He leaves a wife, two sons and a daughter, 

James H. Storrs was born September loth, 1819, at Pomfret, Conn. , and was 
the third son of the Rev. Samuel Porter Storrs. His early life was spent at E.xeter 
and Cherry Valley in New York, where at school, and under the eye of his father, 
he prepared for college. In the Fall of 1838 he entered the Sophomore Class of 
Union College, and in 1841 he was graduated with honors near its head and was 
enrolled among the members of the $. B. K. Society. Scarcely two years after his 
graduation he was called upon to mourn the loss of his father, who died at 
Columbus, Chenango County, N. Y. , where he was, at that time, settled as pastor 
of the local Congregational Church. 

After leaving college he studied law with Hon. John J. Taylor, of Owego, 
Tioga County, N. Y., and was admitted to practice in 1845. In the Fall of 1850 
he married Susan Frances, eldest daughter of the Rev. Benjamin I. Lane, who 
was then settled in Cambridge, Mass. Mr. Storrs continued in the active practice 
of the law for nearly thirty-eight years, and until the day of his death. He died 
on the 30th day of October, in the 64th year of his age, leaving a widow and 
one son. 

For many years previous to his death Mr. Storrs had been a great sufferer from 
heart disease which finally ended his life and his work on earth. An old friend, 
speaking of him after his death, said : "His life deserves note and remembrance 
from his absolute fidelity to his duty ; he was a man of extraordinary diligence and 
persistency in his professional work, and devoted to it time which should have 
been given to relaxation and exercise. His conscientiousness, his exactness, his 
minute attention to every detail, made his services invaluable to whomsoever his 
professional life was devoted." 

In his youth Mr. Storrs became an earnest Christian ; and all through the days 
of his youth, manhood, and riper years, he was a sincere professor of religion. 
His home with his family was his chief attraction, and he seldom spent an evening 



10 

away from its inner circle. The perfect gentleness of his manner, and his kindly 
ways, endeared him to all who met him ; while the absolute justice, integrity, and 
painstaking care which marked his character in all things, brought him the love 
and honor of all who, whether in social or business life, had the good fortune to 
know him. 

For many years Mr. Storrs was the superintendent of the Sunday School of the 
Chuch of the Pilgrims in Brooklyn, and was intimately connected with many 
religious and benevolent associations of this city. 

At the time of his death, and for many years previous, he had been connected 
with the Central Pacific Railroad as its counsel, and was also the counsel of the 
Southern Pacific and of the Chesapeake and Ohio, and the many branches and 
connecting links of those great systems of railroads. 

At the last he passed suddenly away, trusted, honored, and beloved by all who 
had known him. He now rests from his labors, having made the world better by 
having lived in it and leaving an example that all might well follow. 

Walter Oliver Woodford was born at New York City on February 27th, 
1836. He was of New England parentage, his father Oliver W. Woodford (still 
living in Brooklyn) being a native of Avon, Conn., and his mother Eleanor Phelps 
(deceased) having been born at Tolland, Mass. His direct ancestors, both 
paternal and maternal, were natives of Massachusetts or of Connecticut, from 
before the Revolution. One, Thomas Woodford, was a member of the original 
company that first settled Hartford, Conn., where descendants of the family still 
reside. 

Mr. Woodford was educated at New York City and was for a time a student in 
the College of the City of New York. But his tastes were essentially mercantile 
and he early entered the New York office of William Jessop & Sons, who are 
among the leading manufacturers of steel at Sheffield, England. Passing through 
all the grades of the house from office lad up, he became at last the manager and 
American head of its extensive business throughout the United States, and was 
such at his death. 

In 1861, he married Rebecca Jackson at New York ; she died April 5th, 1864, 
leaving one son, Walter Emerson Woodford, who is still living. 

In 1866 he married again, his second wife being Julia Brainard, of Albany, 
N. Y. He had previously taken up his residence in Brooklyn, where he continued 
to live until his death. By this marriage he had four children, two sons and two 
daughters, all of whom survive him. 

In addition to his supervision of the extensive Jessop business, he became the 
treasurer of the Northampton Cutlery Company, at Northampton, Mass., and was 
also their business manager at New York City. This connection he also continued 
until his decease. 

He became early a member of our Society. 

Mr. Woodford was an energetic business man, who formed broad plans and 
carried them resolutely to success. Singularly attentive to details, he was brave 
and wise in the large management of the important interests confided to his care. 
In business affairs he was scrupulously honest, faithful and trutiiful, and enjoyed 
the entire confidence of his associates. He was a director in the Hanover National 
Bank of New York, and was an active and valuable member of its Board. 

His zealous and constant attention tu his many and varied business duties 
finally undermined his constitution and he died literally from overwork. Early in 
the winter of 1882, he went South in the vain effort to regain his health. 
Returning, he lingered in great suffering and finally passed away early in the 
morning of April 3d, 18S2. 

For some years he and his family attended the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian 
Church, and subsequently that of Dr. Scudder. 

He was a true friend, an affectionate husband and father, an honorable 
merchant, and a good citizen. 

Arthur C. Ives, a member of this Society since 1880, was born June 7, 1841, 
in Meriden, Conn., and died March 7, 1882, in Brooklyn, after a short illness of 
one week. The greater part of his education was obtained in New Haven and in 
Brooklyn, he having removed to the latter city in 1847, where he spent the 
remainder of his life, with the exception of two years iu Philadelphia. P'or some 



11 

years, at the outset of his business life, he was engaged in the manufacture of 
lamps. He then became interested in life insurance, and for many years prior to 
his death he was general agent in New York of the Provident Life and Trust 
Company of Philadelphia. 

Mr. Ives was married in 1866 to Miss Celestia Adams of Ohio. His wife and 
two children, one son and one daughter, survive him. 

Samuel G. Bass was born in Colebrook, I^itchfield County, Conn., Oct. 29th, 
1836. After receiving a thorough education, he came to Brooklyn in 1858 and 
entered the employ of J. S. Rockwell & Co. His business ability soon secured 
him a partnership in the firm, which he retained as an active member until the 
day of his death. 

He married, May 26th, 1864, Miss Kate Lawrence, daughter of the Hon. 
Luther Lawrence of Pepperell, Mass., who survives him. 

A member of Plymouth Church, he was ever a sincere and unostentatious 
Christian ; naturally of a domestic disposition, his home was ever the centre of 
his affections, while his genial nature and loving heart endeared him to a large 
circle of friends. In the vigor of life his lamp went suddenly out, and in the 
bright hope of a blessed immortality he passed away. 

Mr. Edwin Bulkley, a member of this Society since 18S0, was born at Mill 
River (now Southport), Conn., Dec. 2, 1817. He was descended from the Rev. 
Peter Bulkley, who left England in consequence of the persecution of the 
Nonconformist clergy by Archbishop Laud, arriving in Cambridge, Mass., in 
1634 ; and as leader founded, with a little company of exiles, the town of Concord, 
where he was installed as pastor of the First Congregational Church. 

In 1644 his son, Thomas Bulkley, came to Fairfield County, Conn. , where 
descendants in the direct line have ever since resided. 

Mr. Bulkley, after receiving a substantial education and taking a trip to 
Europe for business, study and pleasure, came to New York at the age of 21, and 
commenced the manufacture of paper, forming a copartnership, and establishing 
the firm of Cross, Bulkley «& Gookin. Soon after, on the retirement of two 
members, the firm became Bulkley Bros. & Co., and eventually by subsequent 
changes the well known firm of Bulkley, Dunton & Co., of which Mr. Bulkley's 
two sons are at present members. 

In 1846 Mr. Bulkley married Helen Perry, and a short time afterward moved 
to Brooklyn Heights, where he resided some thirty years and until the time of his 
death. He died July 7, 1882, leaving six children, two sons and four daughters. 

In addition to his large interests in the manufacture of paper, he was identified 
with several important industrial and financial enterprises, being a director in the 
John Russell Cutlery Company, the Bank of North America, the Crocker National 
Bank, the National Bank of Southport, and the Standard Insurance Company. 

Mr. Bulkley had a large circle of acquaintances throughout the country, 
especially in the East, and the position maintained by him during his long and 
active business life, was one of sterling integrity. He was one of the esteemed 
representatives of the highest type of the honorable and successful merchant. 
His ambition turned in no way toward prominence in public life, his home and 
business being the centre of his thoughts, and the positions he held were the 
indication of the confidence of his associates. 

Henry Collins. The sketch of the life of this gentlemen, which we had 
hoped to receive in time to read on this occasion, has not come to hand in time 
for our Annual Report. 

Edwards S. Sanford, one of the earliest members of this Society, was born 
in Medway, Mass., March 15th, 1817. He had excellent advantages of early 
education and was prepared for college, but his health being at the time inadequate 
for continued close study he went early into active business. 

In September, 1842, he became connected with the Adams Express Company, 
of which, in 1857, he was appointed Vice-President and General Superintendent, 
and held the former position until his death, but resigned that of Superintendent 
in 1866. He was also a director in the Western Union Telegraph Company, and 
in the International Telegraph Company. 



12 

Prominent in New York commercial circles, thirty years ago (says a sketch of 
his life in the Brooklyn Eagle), he was a man of wide knowledge and wide 
experience, coupled with high social culture. 

He was an intimate friend of General Grant and of Secretary Stanton, and 
when the civil war broke out was appointed by the latter supervisor of telegrams 
and military censor of newspaper dispatches for the army, with the rank and pay 
of General, but the pay he never accepted. At the close of the war in 1865, 
Col. Sanford received the brevet rank of brigadier general for faithful services in 
the department under his charge. 

Mr. Sanford was a permanent member of the Brooklyn Library, a member of 
the Brooklyn Art Association, and a liberal director and supporter of the Long 
Island Historical Society, besides being prominently identified with several of our 
local charitable organizations. 

His wife is one of the most active members of the State Charities Association. 
He and all his family were attendants at the Church of the Pilgrims, with the 
pastor of whicli Mr. Sanford was on terms of the most cordial relationship. His 
generosity and large heartedness were preeminently his distinguishing traits of 
character, but the good was all in a quiet way, and with manifest desire to escape 
public attention. He took an active interest in politics, and while never holding 
office or being particularly prominent in the political sphere, was a close observer 
and held and expressed pronounced opinions of men and measures. Recently he 
was selected by the Secretary of the Treasury as one of the Commissioners to 
locate the proposed new Federal Building in this city. Mr. Sanford was an 
enthusiastic lover of horses, and owned and delighted in the culture of a stock 
farm in Gravesend. 

He died Sept 9, 1882, aged sixty-six years, of apoplexy, while on a visit to 
his son-in-law, Mr N. W. T. Hatch, at Glen Olden, Penn. When the news of 
his death was received, the flags on various public buildings were, in New York 
and Brooklyn, lowered to half mast in token of respect The funeral took place 
from his residence in Brooklyn ; Dr. Storrs, pastor of the Church of the Pilgrims, 
officiating. Mr. Sanford left a wife and two children, a son and a daughter, both 
of whom are married. He was a warm generous friend, and was respected and 
beloved by all who knew him. 

On motion, this report was accepted and ordered to be spread upon the minutes, 
and also to be published in the Annual Report issued by the Society. 

The terms of Messrs. Henry W. Slocum, A. S. Barnes, and Ripley Ropes as 
Directors having expired, the Society proceeded to elect, by ballot, three Directors, 
to hold office for four years. Messrs. Henry W. Slocum, A. S. Barnes, and Ripley 
Ropes were re-elected, and their election duly declared by the Chairman. 

On motion of Mr. A. W. Tenney, the Chairman was authorized to request 
President Porter to furnish the Society with a copy of the address delivered by 
him December 4th, 1882. 

Adjourned. 

ALBERT E. LAMB, 

Recording Sec7etary. 



Proceedings and Si 



ROCEEDINGS AND OPEECHES 

AT THE 

THIRD ANNUAL FESTIVAL, 

HELD 

December 21st, 1882, 

/// commemoration of the Two Hundred and Sixty-second Anniversary 
of the Landing of the Pilgrims. 



The Third Annual Festival of The New England Society in the 
City of Brooklyn, was held in the Assembly Room of the Academy 
of Music, and in the Art Room adjoining, Thursday evening, 
December 21, 1882. 

The previous festivals of the Society have been given in these 
rooms, and their admirable appointments and accommodations 
added not a little to the success of the entertainments. 

The Reception was held in the Art Room, and despite the 
inclemency of the weather two hundred and seventy members of 
the Society, besides invited guests, assembled, with that punctuality 
peculiar to New Englanders when the announcement of a banquet 
has been made. 

The Art Room was bright and cheerful and an hour was pleas- 
antly passed in exchanging greetings and in depreciating, as usual, 
the achievements of the descendants of the Pilgrims. The lovers 
of art found in the many beautiful paintings which adorned the 
walls much to gratify an appreciative examination. Conterno's 
band and orchestra furnished select and popular music. 

At six o'clock the Assembly Room was thrown open, and all 
present entered and took their allotted seats at the tables. This 
room was tastefully decorated. Large American flags, linked with 
tricolored streamers running from chandelier to chandelier, were 
festooned along the walls, where also hung the flag of the City of 
Brooklyn and the coat-of-arms of each of the thirteen original 
States. The dinner was furnished by Delmonico and was in 
quality, variety and service, excellent. The tables were profusely 
yet tastefully decorated with flowers and by the art of the confec- 
tioner expressed in models of churches, school-houses, mills, tunnels 
and railroads, symbols of the power, progress, and prosperity of 
New England. 



u 

At the guest's table were seated, on the left of the President, 
Hon. William M. Evarts, Hon. W. T. Davis, Hon. A. Q. Keasbey, 
Hon. Josiah W. Fiske, Hon. Stewart L. Woodford, John C. McGuire, 
Esq., and Hon. John W. Hunter ; and on the right, Hon. Noah 
Davis, Col. W. F. Vilas, Henry E. Pierrepont, Esq., Hon. Seth Low, 
and Hon, Benjamin F. Tracy. 



MENU. 



Oysters. 

Soups. 
Princess. Craw Fish. 

Side-dishi's. 
Olives. Timbales a la Perigordine. Celery. 

Fish. 
Salmon, with Parsley Sauce. Smelts a la Tartar. 

Entrees. 

Boiled Young Turkeys a I'ltalienne. 

Venison Steak a la Hussarde. Terrapin in Cases a la Newherg. 

Fillet of Beef a la Bayonnaise. 

S/terbei. 
A la Regence. 

Roasts. 

Canvasbacks. Quail. 

Salad. 

Vegetables. 
Green Peas. Beans. Spinach. 

Sweetmeats. 
Paniers Sultane. Plum Pudding, with Rum Sauce. Assorted Cakes. 



Neapolitan. Macaroon Puffs 



Pyramids. 



Fruits and Dessert. 
Coffee. 



15 



ADDRESS BY HON. B. D. SILLIMAN, 
President of the Society. 

Gentlemen of the Nezv England Society : Again we are glad 
in the recurrence of this anniversary and in welcoming one an- 
other around the family table. We greet and welcome our 
kindred who are with us from other parts of New England — 
and we greet and welcome the "strangers that are within our 
gates " and who have come to join with us in honoring the 
memory of the forefathers from whom it is our blessing and 
our boast that we are descended. 

We are no less proud of our descent from our foremothers. 
We know that those goodly and godly dames were pre-emi- 
nently good, gentle, and refined, and irresistibly beautiful, for 
such are their daughters. {Applause.) It is certain, too, that 
the Pilgrim Fathers were peerless specimens of the manhood 
of that day — " for by their fruits ye shall know them " — though, 
doubtless, the absolute perfection of this splendid assemblage 
of their sons can only be the result of two hundred and 
sixty-two years of the most active "evolution." {Laughter.) 

But let us not sing all our paeans to the Pilgrim fathers. Let 
us also remember and honor the Pilgrim mothers. According 
to accepted tradition it was not a Pilgrim father, but a Pilgrim 
maiden, fair Mary Chilton, who first sprang from tJie Mayflow- 
er s boat as it approached the rock. She married John Wins- 
low, and among her descendants were Copley, the great painter. 
Lord Lyndhurst, afterward Lord Chancellor of England, and in 
later days Admiral Winsloza, of our Navy, who in the U. S. 
ship Kcarsarge during the civil war captured and sunk the rebel 
frigate Alabama, which had been fitted out in England to prey 
upon our commerce. 

But I must refrain from their biographies for the brief hours 
forbid more than a passing tribute to those heroic women, who 
made greater sacrifices and suffered greater hardships than did 
the men, for they were less able to endure them. From Delft 
to Plymouth, from Plymouth to the days of "green pastures 
and still waters," they braved, without a murmur, cold and 
tempests and famine and savage war. They and their daugh- 
ters have ever made pure, beautiful, and happy, the homes of 
New England ; and their nursery and fireside teachings and 



16 

moral inculcations have done more than all other teachings to 
guide their sons in the way they should go. {Applause^ 

Between six and seven years after the Pilgrims landed they 
were followed by the Puritans, among whom were very many 
persons of gentle blood, of high education (graduates of Ox- 
ford and Cambridge) and of large means. By 1640 they 
amounted to somewhat over twenty thousand, and the New 
England people thus originating have so increased and multi- 
plied that their descendants now number (according to the best 
estimate) some thirteen millions, constituting a quarter part of 
the population of the United States, over the whole surface of 
which they have gone forth, and the institutions of which they 
have so largely created, shaped, and influenced. 

History has no record of any little group of men who have 
ever so indelibly imprinted on succeeding generations, and on 
millions of people, their own characteristics and their principles, 
or who have acted so large a part in founding such a vast em- 
pire, so powerful, so free, and of such high civilization. 

Although the Pilgrims numbered but one hundred and ten 
(men, women, and children) who came by the Mayflower, yet 
we all aim and contrive to trace our pedigree on the father's or 
mother's side to them. Who can doubt, for instance, that it 
was from Miles Standish (a warrior of a titled race — by descent, 
by nature, and by gallant service on the continent), who can 
doubt that from him our illustrious friend General Grant and 
the other distinguished generals whom I see before me inher- 
ited their military genius? Who can doubt that the Hon. ex- 
Secretary of State, the learned Judge, the Counsellor, the 
Mayor, derived their blood, wisdom, eloquence, and their 
statesmanship, through their mothers, from the other strong 
men of the Mayflower ? {Applause.) 

Well may we all revere the pure, brave, and wise persons 
who, in the cabin of that little ship, framed that immortal com- 
pact which established a republic in America, which provided 
for equal laws, equal rights, and popular suffrage. They, and 
the Puritans who followed them, so soon as they had built 
their rude dwellings, built also their churches and their com- 
mon school-houses. They believed in God and sought to 
establish a government in accordance with His laws. How 
fully, how wonderfully, is their aim accomplished in this mighty 



17 

Republic, where the people are absolutely free — restrained only 
by such laws as they themselves ordain. Then, too, with un- 
limited freedom of opinion and of sect, with entire tolerance of 
atheism, infidelity, and of every kind of false doctrine, heresy, 
and schism, with no connection of church and state, with no 
aid from government, we yet find that while, since the begin- 
ning of the Revolutionary War, the increase of population of 
the United States has been a little over eleven-fold, the in- 
crease of churches has been thirty-seven-fold ; that the mem- 
bers of these churches were then as one to seventeen hundred 
of the people, while now they are as one to six hundred ; 
that six houses of Christian worship are finished somewhere 
in the United States each working day of the year; that 
$50,000,000 are spent yearly on objects connected with them ; 
and that thirty-two millions of Bibles are printed and distrib- 
uted annually." 

Such is the great political and moral aspect of this nation at 
this day. {Applause^) 

We cannot overrate or overvalue the forecast of our New 
England ancestors in providing for the due education of the 
people, and making them competent for self-government. 

Very opposite views prevailed at that time as to the wisdom 
of popular education. Thus in 1670 the Commissioners 01 
Plantations addressed to the Governors of Colonies several 
questions relative to their condition. To one respecting the 
means of education the Governor of Connecticut replied, "One- 
fourth of the annual revenue of the Colony is laid out in main- 
taining free schools for the education of our children." To the 
same question Governor Berkeley, of Virginia, replied, " I 
thank God there are no free schools, nor printing, and I hope 
we shall not have these hundred years." f But with years came 
change, and Virginia now cherishes her admirable college, and 
provides for her free schools. 

The light that illuminates all parts of this land, and which 
is vital to our national existence, emanates from the common 
schools — the legacy of the Pilgrims and the Puritans. In our 
government the people are the jurors who record their verdict 
annually at the ballot-box. For the integrity of their verdicts 
we must rely on their moral training — for the intelligence 

* Bishop Huntington. f Anier. Cyclop. 

2 



18 

of their verdicts we must rely on their education in those 
schools. 

This New England institution of Common Schools has been 
adopted by all the Northern and Northwestern States, and 
since the rebellion most, if not all, of the Southern and South- 
western States, which before had no such system, have in 
their new constitutions provided for it, and such schools are 
now established on the shores of the Gulf and of the Pacific 
Ocean — in Mississippi, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. 
California expended last year in support of her's no less than 
$3,010,907. 

It is a fact, over which we may well exult, that New York, 
with her population of 5,083,810, expended in the last year for 
the support of her common schools $10,464,010, instructing 
1,662,120 children, and that the New England States, with 
their population of 4,013,438, expended in support of their's 
$9, 1 5 8,899. {Applause.) 

It is this "leveling up" of the masses that constitutes the 
strength and safety of the nation. We have no lazzaroni, no 
serfs, no peasants, no "dangerous classes." The Pilgrim and 
Puritan doctrine of equality of all men before the law, of ele- 
mentary education for all men, and of popular suffrage, is the 
safety-valve which renders the dynamite harmless, and puts an 
end to all such classes. It has made this the safest, as it will 
be the most enduring of governments, if the moral and mental 
training inculcated by the Fathers is faithfully continued. 
This done, it will be as impossible to enslave this people as it 
would be to enchain the waves of the ocean. We need no 
revolutions of violence. The only cause for civil war is at an 
end. We may hope that the ballot-box will henceforth suffice 
to right all wrongs. No misgovernment can gain great head- 
way. The evil and the correcting ballot-box are never far 
apart. November soon comes to set it right. {Applause}) 

Those who bode evil tell us that "history repeats itself" — 
that "history is philosophy teaching by example" — and that 
"like causes produce like effects" — and hence that the power 
of vast accumulated wealth, and the unbridled ambition of 
great leaders, may destroy our government. But with us these 
maxims have no force, for like causes cannot here " produce 
like effects." The conditions will be radically different. At 



19 

no time on the other side the sea have such causes acted on 
people who exercised universal suffrage, and who had, as with 
us, been made by early, systematic education, competent for 
it. There, too, the people were governed, while here the 
people govern. 

But to return from this digression. New Englanders wher- 
ever they have gone have carried New England, her institu- 
tions and usages, with them. Not only school-houses and 
churches, but laws (substantially alike) prohibiting business, 
labor, and amusements, on Sunday, exist in most, if not in all 
the States, and among them in Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, 
California, Georgia, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska and Ne- 
vada, as well as in the older States. The New England 
"Thanksgiving Day " has been everywhere adopted (and, of 
late years, by the National Government). Her " Fast Days," 
it must be confessed, did not take so well, and I fear that 
latterly she has herself become somewhat remiss in their ob- 
servance. {Laughter^ 

A favorite and grave imputation made by her enemies — 
strange that she should have enemies — is that in early days 
the Puritans were intolerant in matters of religion, that they 
persecuted the Quakers, and hung witches at Salem and in 
neighboring towns. Let us for a moment consider these 
charges. 

These worthy critics and cynics read history backward. 
They denounce the generations who are gone as though their 
actions should be judged, not by the lights which they had, 
but by the lights of the present. Their censure results, too, 
from ignorance of history and of the state of the world at that 
time. The Puritans came from a land where toleration was 
then unknown. They had been reared in persecution. They 
were oppressed in every way. They could only oppose to it 
their high principle, indomitable courage, will, tenacity, and 
determination to maintain among themselves their own relig- 
ious principles and convictions. They were unavoidably "the 
church militant." Their austere life, and their creed, were the 
natural recoil from the opposite errors which they denounced. 
It was not strange, certainly, at that time, that they should, at 
first, repel those who came among them to subvert the worship 
and the principles for which they had left their homes forever. 



20 

crossed the sea, and taken up their abode in the wilderness. 
But the portion of the so-called "Quakers" of that day, with 
whom the trouble arose, were in no respect like the pure, 
peaceful, and honored denomination of that name which 
exists among us. It would be impossible to state a greater 
contrast. Many of them were the craziest of fanatics, and 
were they here to-day acting as they then did, would be at 
once in the hands of the police as disturbers of the public 
peace. Such acts as invading and breaking up religious meet- 
ings by persons with blackened faces, or in grotesque costume, 
and exhibiting themselves in the public streets without cloth- 
ing, as a matter of religion, would provoke rough treatment 
from a more tolerant race than the Puritans then were. That 
the latter may have erred in their severity is both natural and 
probable. 

Those who acrimoniously denounce the Puritans for hanging 
witches, probably suppose that they were the first people who 
did so. They do not know that a belief in witchcraft then, 
and for very many years before, prevailed in England as well 
as on the Continent. They probably do not know that the 
mandate of Moses " Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live " 
was early, and long, and faithfully, obeyed, and that in the 
later years, under the bulls of Pope Innocent VIII and several 
of his successors, it is estimated that one hundred thousand 
were put to death (mostly by burning) in Germany alone; 
vast numbers in France, Switzerland and other parts of Europe ; 
and that in England, including those executed under acts of 
Parliament, no fewer than thirty thousand perished before. 
They, probably, do not know that the statutes against witches 
which had been enacted by Parliament, were not repealed 
until 1736, nearly half a century after the Salem trials, which 
were in 1692. The latest of these statutes was in the time 
of James I, in whose reign the Pilgrims and Puritans came 
to this country. In England the great Sir Matthew Hale, 
in 1665, sentenced Rose Callender and Amy Drury, two wid- 
ows, for bewitching seven people, two carts, and a chimney, 
and for turning themselves into bees and mice, and on the 
next Sunday after they were hung he wrote a "meditation on 
the mercy of God in preserving us from the malice and power 
of evil angels," and cited these two cases as proofs of such 



21 

mercy.* Many trials for witchcraft were had in England long 
after those in Salem ; and in 1716 Mrs. Hicks and her daughter 
nine years old were hanged for selling their souls to the devil 
and raising a storm by pulling off their stockings. In Scotland 
a woman was hanged in 1722 for transforming her daughter 
into a pony and having her shod by the devil ; another was 
hanged in Scotland as late as 1792. 

In Princess Anne County, in Virginia, Grace Sherwood was 
tried for witchcraft in 1706 — fourteen years after the Salem 
trials. In 1684 a woman was tried in Philadelphia before 
William Penn for bewitching cows — and in South Carolina as 
late as I7i2,the law against conjuration, witchcraft and dealing 
with evil and wicked spirits was declared to be in force. No 
doubt the Puritans prosecuted their culprits with energy (as they 
did everything else), but their action was "according to law," 
and required by law, and in accordance with the general belief 
of the period among enlightened nations. 

There was certainly scriptural authority enough for the be- 
lief in witches on which the edicts of the church against them 
were based. The creed was good law in England, not only 
under acts of Parliament, but at Common law, for we find that 
Sir Williavi Blackstoiic in his famous Commentaries {Book IV., 
Ch. 4, Sec. 6) says : 

" To deny the possibility, nay, the actual existence of 
witchcraft and sorcery is at once flatly to contradict the 
revealed word of God in various passages both of the Old 
and New Testament ; and the thing itself is a truth to 
which every nation in the world hath in its turn borne testi- 
mony, either by examples seemingly well attested, or by pro- 
hibiting laws which at least suppose the possibility of a com- 
merce with evil spirits." 

Now be it remembered that these words of the great com- 
mentator were seventy-three years after the Salem trials. 

I believe no men were accused of witchcraft. It was prac- 
tised exclusively by women — and a great many of them still 
bewitch, though anything but punishment is awarded to them 
now-a-days for so doing. {Laughter^ 

Doubtless there are to-day some who, holding that every 
word in the scripture is to be taken literally, still believe in 
witchcraft. Their faith is aided by that hngering belief in the 

* Amos. — " Ruins of Time." 



22 

supernatural which is common to almost all men, and which 
was illustrated by a most gallant officer of our navy whom I 
once asked if he believed in ghosts. He replied : " Not at all 
in the day-time, but at night I have my doubts." {Laughter.) 

It certainly is not strange that the Puritans in 1692, with the 
Bible in its letter as their creed, basing their government on its 
words, in accordance with the prevailing belief in England 
and on the Continent, and in conformity to her then existing 
statutes^it is not strange that they prosecuted the reputed 
witches as they did other reputed malefactors. 

Later years brought with them their enlightenment, and no- 
where did they bring it sooner, or more largely, and nowhere 
was it always more welcomed than in New England. Her 
course, moral and material alike,. has always been actively pro- 
gressive. Nowhere has there been bolder or freer inquiry. 
Nowhere were old errors of doctrine, whether in philosophy or 
religion, sooner discarded, and nowhere on the face of the earth 
is there at this day more untrammeled opinion on every sub- 
ject than there. Her sons are not a sluggish race in thought 
or act. In letters, in art, in philosophy, in industry, in states- 
manship, in peace, in war, they have ever been in the front. 
{Applause.) 

So far from being narrow in their notions it is doubtful 
whether the Pilgrims of 1620 would be thought rigid enough 
for 1882. Now, "Confession is good for the soul" and on this 
point I may state, in strictest confidence, to this assemblage, 
that it appears by the records that when our venerated Pilgrim 
Fathers fitted out The Mayflower for their voyage they pro- 
vided " a plentiful allowance of beer, wine and spirits," and 
that after they arrived here Gov. Winslow, in a letter to a friend 
who was to follow them, advises him, among other things, to 
see that his beer casks are well hooped with iron ; and more 
than all, the great and good John Robinson, the pastor of the 
Pilgrims in Holland, was for his virtues and learning, admitted 
a member of the University of Leyden, and thereby became 
entitled to half a tun of beer every month, and ten gallons of 
wine every three months. Let us assume that these sinful 
supplies were used only for " medicinal purposes." {Laughter^ 

Gentlemen — I am taking more than my share of the scanty 
hours. In what I have said I have mainly fallen into a 



23 

a graver vein that befits this glad festival, but our friends who 
follow me will, I doubt not, restore you to a better frame. 
They have in " New England" a goodly, and exhaustless theme. 
Her area is becoming yearly less and less in proportion to the 
immense increase of our national territory, but she becomes 
yearly more and more powerful through the spread of her prin- 
ciples and examples, while over the remotest regions and 
wastest places of the continent her magnificent universities 
shed their electric light. 



The Chairman : — We had expected that the President of 
the United States would be with us this evening, but unhap- 
pily for us, of^cial duties detain him in Washington. A letter 
has been received which we will read. 

A. E. Lamb, Esq., the Secretary of the Society, thereupon 
read the following letter : 

letter from president arthur. 

Executive Mansion, 
Washington, D. C, Dec. 14, 1882. 

My dear Mr. Sillimati : 

I am again so unfortunate as to be prevented by of^cial en- 
gagements here from attending the Dinner of the New Eng- 
land Society of Brooklyn. It would be very gratifying to me 
to be able to accept the hospitalities of the Society, but it seems 
quite certain now that my duties here will prevent my leaving 
Washington at that time. 

I beg that, as President of the Society, you will express my 
cordial thanks for their kind invitation and my regret that I 
cannot accept it. 

Thanking you for your own kind personal expressions and 
good wishes, I am. 

Very faithfully yours, 

CHESTER A.ARTHUR. 
Benjamin D. Silliman, Esq., 

Brooklyn, N. Y. 



u 

The Chairman : — Gentlemen, fill your glasses for a toast, 

"The President of the United States." 

This toast was received with most cordial greeting and with 
great applause. 

TJie Chairman : — We are, I fear, to suffer a grievous disap- 
pointment. General Grant was to be here. An unaccount- 
able mistake has occurred in the arrangements. for his presence, 
but if telegrams, expresses, and messengers, can avail, we will 
not despair of his coming before our feast is at an end. 

Meantime, gentlemen, let us proceed to the next toast. It 
is in two words. What a history do those words embody ! 
Ah ! how well do we remember when, in the darkest hour, that 
name came forth and brought us light ; when the wisdom, 
firmness, coolness, vigor, valor, of him who bears it, brought to 
us victory and peace, and saved the nation. Let us drink as 
our toast, 

"General Grant." 

The toast was received with the greatest enthusiasm and 
long-continued applause, the assemblage rising, and cheering it 
to the echo. 

The Chairman : — Though General Grant is not here himself 
I am glad to mention that we are favored with the presence of 
Col. Vilas, who served under him in the Western Army. 
Perhaps it is hardly fair to draw upon a guest at sight without 
previous advice of the draft, but I venture to say to him that 
we shall listen with eager welcome if he will favor us with a 
few words in the stead of his great commander. 

SPEECH OF COL. W. F. VILAS. 

Mr. President atid Gentlemen : I sacrifice the timorous 
strength of my judgment before the weak courage of my 
inclinations, when I rise to answer the call of your distin- 
guished President, for I cannot but be conscious that I am 
before men who have descended from New England parentage, 
and who have been bred in New England education. But I 



25 

am here charged with this duty under the call, and a double 
trust — first, because every guest (and especially one who is so 
honored as I am by the call) must obey the command of the 
President ; and second, because I am called upon as a comrade 
to respond to the honor of one who was a soldier — with me, 
more than a soldier, the general whose star I followed. {Ap- 
plause.) And we cannot forget — none of us of this generation 
ever will forget — that when the heavy cloud hung darkest over 
our horizon, the first flash that rent it and opened the gap 
through which the light of coming victory shone flashed from 
the guns of Grant at Fort Donelson. {Loud applause). And 
we cannot forget that by and by, after renewed struggles, and 
greater efforts, when at last he was placed in that great com- 
mand, where so many had gone down before him — not for lack 
of military education, not for want of patriotism, not for want 
of every quality of soldierly courage, but for something which 
God gives to but few — that then, upon his shoulders our free 
world rested, as of old the ancients pictured Atlas, carrying 
the globe we inhabit ; and that by and by, when at last he 
stood before the great hero of the Rebellion and received his 
sword, he held in his left hand the first victory, and in his right 
hand the last, which was the chain within which he bound and 
strangled the rebellion against this country. {Cheers.) And 
we who were soldiers remember that it was his hand in which 
was placed the holy chalice from the sacred altar of our 
country, filled with the blood of the noblest hearts of this 
land ; that it was his hand which poured that blood upon the 
flame of rebellion to extinguish it — not to waste it on the 
ground. {Applause.) And we remember other things in his 
history which I cannot stop to discuss or pass upon, but I will 
pass on to the one title which does him the greatest honor. 
We see across the ocean the great Duke of Wellington heaped 
with honors and with riches, brought near to the royal family 
if not put almost within it. We see the recent victorious hero 
of England's army over the Egyptians made a peer, ennobled 
as they ennoble men, and enriched with abundance of riches. 
Our General, after having achieved his title of distinction, after 
having been President of the United States, has now sur- 
mounted the apex of the pyramid, and is a citizen of the 
United States. {Great cheering) Let it not be said against 



26 

us that we are ungrateful. We are not! We hold that that 
title which we have bestowed upon him is the greatest of all 
he has earned, and he stands to-day richer in the possession of 
that title than he would be with all the titles that governments 
or places of power could ofTer; for by that title he is entitled 
to the grateful love of his fellow-countrymen, which is poured 
out upon him. {Applai{se.) I have said enough to give a brief 
expression to the sentiments which fill the hearts of all soldiers 
who fought under him. I can neither trust myself to add 
more, nor does the occasion demand it. I thank you for your 
kind attention. {Great cheering.) 



The Chairinaji : — Gentlemen, fill your glasses for a toast, 
"The Pilgrims in Holland." 

We shall have the great pleasure of listening on this theme to 
a learned gentleman whose birth-place and home are Plyjnouth, 
hard by the " Rock." I do not know that he was personally 
intimate with Winslow, and Carver, and Brewster, and Stand- 
ish {laughter), but his ancestors came in the Mayfiozver with 
them, and with full knowledge and filial impulse, he will dis- 
course of their home in Holland. 

I have the pleasure of introducing the Hon. William T. 
Davis, of Plymouth, Massachusetts. 

SPEECH OF HON. WILLIAM T. DAVIS. 

Mr. President : — I remember to have heard at one of our lo- 
cal celebrations the toast " Plymouth Rock — not valuable as a 
rock but invaluable as a relic." I suppose the same sort of 
value attaches to myself to-night, and that I owe my invitation 
only to the fact that I come from Plymouth, the home of the 
Pilgrims. I beg to assure you that I left Messrs. Bradford and 
Brewster, and Captain Standish, as well as could be expected, 
and that they wish to be remembered to their children here 
and everywhere. {Laughter}) They have given me a sort of 
roving commission to inquire into certain things which they do 
not quite understand. They know about the city on the other 
side of the river, because they captured it from the Dutch and 



27 

made Thomas Willet, one of their number, its mayor. They 
say, too, that they did not exhaust the Willet stock, as Marinus 
Willet, a descendant, held the same position a century and a 
quarter later. They do not comprehend, however, the mean- 
ing of the City of Churches. They know what the church is, 
for if they remember aright, they once had a little unpleasant- 
ness with it. They know, too, what a meeting-house is ; but a 
city of churches puzzles them exceedingly. {Laughter) They 
have heard about your Cleopatra's Needle, and wonder whether, 
now that you are importing all the curiosities of the Old World, 
the great bridge they read so much about is the Bridge of Sighs. 
{Laughter) And the blowing up of Hell Gate, too— for so they 
hear it called — is a matter of some interest. They thought it 
was blown up some time ago, and have an impression that they 
furnished some of the powder. They have a suspicion that the 
City of Churches may have had something to with its revival. 
And, finally, they are anxious to learn whether your mayor is 
their old friend, " Lo, the poor Indian." {Laughter) But you 
and I know sir, that he is not a man of " untutored mind." 
I am making diligent inquiries into all these things, and proba- 
bly my report will be acted upon simultaneously with the 
reports to Congress on the revision of the tariff and the 
French claims. 

Your toast, sir, opens a field as yet inadequately explored. 
I have groped in it with others by the aid of feeble lights, but 
my explorations have been sufficient to reveal to me the source 
of those traits in the character of the Pilgrims, which side by 
side with their religious faith made their efforts at colonization 
effective and successful. I remember that when I was a boy it 
was for a time the common answer to an inquiry for the 
news that the Dutch had taken Holland. It was not until I 
had reached mature years, and learned something of that nation 
and its people, that I comprehended the transcendental mean- 
ing of that reply. The Dutch have taken Holland, and in a 
sense applicable to no other nation on the face of the earth. 
By neither purchase nor arms, by neither conquest nor treaty, 
by no usual means and against no ordinary foe, they have made 
it their own. With the weapons of a resolute spirit, a sublime 
patience, an indomitable perseverence, they have fought against 
nature herself, and the batteries hurled against them were the 



28 

waves of the ocean and the waters of the Rhine. Against 
these they have conquered, and as their enemy still lurks along 
their dikes seeking some cranny or crevasse by which it may 
enter and overpower them, they repeat the Divine command, 
" Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further, and here shall thy 
proud waves be stayed." Like a huge coffer dam, its very 
name signifying hollow land, Holland stands to-day a castle in 
the sea, as much the creation of man as those mighty coral 
reefs which rise in mid-ocean and in process of time become 
islands, and perhaps continents, are the handiwork of the in- 
sect whose name they bear. {Applaitse.) 

These were the people among whom, by the inscrutable wis- 
dom of Providence, the Pilgrims were sent to serve their 
twelve years' probation before the great work of their lives 
began. They left England simply religious devotees ; they left 
Holland trained, disciplined, practical men. They crossed the 
German Ocean in 1608, full of religious faith and trust in God • 
they crossed the Atlantic in 1620 equally full of self-reliance 
and trust in themselves. They left their English homes bound 
together, it is true, by the bond of Christian sympathy and 
love, but still recognising the distinctions of social and civil 
rank. Their life in Holland under the pressure of common ne- 
cessities, of common burdens, and at last of a common des- 
tiny, moulded them into a community in which equality of 
rights and power became the recognized law. Without this 
period of probation their efforts at colonization would have 
been a failure, or if not a failure would have planted the seed 
of an autocratic government on these shores, from which it is 
hardly possible that the majestic tree could have sprung under 
which are now gathered in our land fifty millions of liberty- 
loving and liberty-enjoying men. {Applattsfl) In illustration of 
this statement, look at the different methods of the Plymouth 
and Massachusetts colonies. The one was simple and demo- 
cratic from the start, the whole body having a voice in the 
election of the governor and assistants and in the enactment of 
the laws ; the other was fresh from the ways of royalty, a colony 
composed of a few active, intelligent, cultured men, with a larger 
number of laborers and artisans recruited for the service, the 
whole wanting in homogenity, unequal in rank and station, 
choosing their assistants only by a popular vote, while the assist- 



29 

ants chose the governor, and the governor and the assistants 
made the laws. Let it be remembered to the everlasting honor 
and glory of the Pilgrims, that when the colony of Winthrop 
landed at Boston 1500 strong, with every probability, according 
to the ordinary judgments of men, of absorbing and overwhelm- 
ing that weak and feeble settlement which during ten years had 
been struggling for existence against privation and hardship 
and disease and death in the wilderness of Plymouth, only 
forty miles away, they not only preserved their identity but 
impregnated their sister colony with liberal ideas of self-gov- 
ernment, and leavened the whole lump with the leaven of equal 
rights and equal laws. {Applause.) 

But, sir, I can do no more than hint at those practical ele- 
ments of the Pilgrim character which a residence in Holland 
developed and matured. Let me suggest only a single further 
illustration. At the expiration of the seven years' term of their 
contract with the merchant adventurers of London, under 
whose auspices and by w^hose aid their emigration was accom- 
plished, the Pilgrims found themselves in debt to the adven- 
turers and others to the amount of ^^"2,400. Picture if you can 
this feeble colony of men, women, and children, less than 300 
strong, surrounded by savages and the forest, sheltered by 
thatched huts from the winter's cold, insufficiently clothed and 
fed, mourning over the graves of their husbands and wives and 
parents and children, with crops inadequate to their support, 
borrowing money in England at fifty per cent, interest for the 
purchase of the necessaries of life, and burdened with a debt 
larger per capita than our national debt at the close of the war. 
Tell me, how soon did dread despair settle down on their 
hearts? How soon did they yield to the menace of starvation 
and death? \n how many months or wrecks or days was the 
settlement of New England abandoned, and the wilderness 
which had been cheered for a season by the light of civilization, 
again overshadowed by the cloud of barbarism ? Open the 
book of history and learn how different was their fate. \\\ this 
critical period, the very turning point of their enterprise, when 
merely worldly men would have faltered, and merely religious 
men would have abandoned themselves to the efficacy of prayer, 
eight of the leading men of the colony, Bradford, Brewster, 
Winslow, Standish, Howland, Alden, Allerton and Prince, im- 



30 

bued with a trust in God and a trust in themselves, joined with 
Beauchamp, Shirley, Andrews and Hatherly, four of their 
friends in England, and assumed the debt, giving their notes 
payable in nine annual installments. {Applause) But do you 
ask how they could pay their notes without wealth or surplus 
products of their labor ? Their Dutch ingenuity and shrewdness 
were not at fault ; they took from the colony its trading rights 
with the Indians as security. But do you ask again how they 
could trade without some circulating medium for their barter 
and sale? They were still masters of the situation. They taught 
the natives the use of wampum, then only known to a few, 
and from the shell of the quahaug on the shore they manufac- 
tured their currency, and by its use carried on so successful a 
trade with the Indians in the purchase of furs and other com- 
modities as within the prescribed time to liquidate the debt 
and secure to the colony its houses and lands. No legal-ten- 
der scheme of our day has been so bold in conception and so 
effective in operation as that devised by our fathers, which 
with the shells of the shore paid off our first national debt and 
established on a permanent basis the material prosperity of 
New England. {Applause.) I hold in my hand a specimen of 
this Pilgrim currency, strung precisely as it was used 250 years 
ago, the purple alternating with the white and double its value, 
the whole rated at five shillings per yard. Modern financiers, 
raking only beneath the surface of history, talk glibly of gold as 
the traditional money of our fathers ; but if they dig deeper 
they will find the wampum of the Pilgrims lying at the very 
foundation of our national wealth. The Pilgrim mint is not 
yet exhausted, and if in some future war the sensibilities of 
these worshippers of tradition and precedent are likely to be 
disturbed by the reproduction of stamped legal-tender paper, 
our mills can easily be put in operation and furnish them with 
all the traditional money they need. 

I have in these few words suggested that the Pilgrims were 
something more than merely religious men. A religious spirit 
was the foundation of their character, but they built on it dur- 
ing their residence in Holland a structure as marked as the 
foundation itself. At every step in their history the hand of 
Providence seems to have guided them, but at no stage of their 
career do we see that guiding hand more conspicuously shown 



31 

than in their emigration to Holland and in the training and 
discipline they underwent during their twelve years' residence 
among its people. Let me give as a supplement to your sen- 
timent, " Holland, the school of the Pilgrims." {Applause.) 

The Chairman : — Our next regular toast is, 

"The New England Creed. — Her Doctrines are 
Known by Her Deeds." 

I have no need to introduce to you our silver-tongued friend, 
who will speak to this toast. A descendant of New England, 
he is imbued with her doctrines, and has, alike in peace and 
war, borne a brave part in her deeds. We shall gladly listen 
to General. Woodford. 

speech of HON. STEWART L. WOODFORD. 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Neiv England Society : 
It is just possible that, speaking in your behalf, I may give our 
friend from Plymouth Rock some of the information that he 
seeks. Our Mayor is not Lo, the poor Indian, but Low, the 
son of the ricJi Chinee, {Laughter.) And as to the suggestion 
of the wampum, our New England friends may still keep their 
belief in hard money, for the same thing followed the wampum 
then, that would follow the fiat currency now. The Indians 
who knew nothing, took it, and the Yankees who knew all, 
parted with it ; and when the trade was completed, the 
Indians had all the wampum, and the Yankees had all the 
furs. {Laughter^) 

The New England creed, and the New England doctrine ! 
Creed is belief, doctrine is teaching. What New England 
believed, New England bravely taught, and what New England 
taught, New England has always loyally lived up to. 

In what did New England believe? 

First and foremost she believed in men. She recognized 
that it was for man that labor had wrought, that science had 
taught, that art had cultured, and that Christ had died. When 
the Puritan stood covered before the king, it was because he 
believed that the Puritan hat covered an embryo State, and 
that man was greater than king or throne. 



33 

New England believing in man, believed in liberty for man. 
True, she passed her blue laws; true, she burned her witches; 
but through all her doings there ran this current of her 
better thought; and just as the stream, muddy at its source, 
grows brighter and fresher in its course, so New England 
thought at last ran clear, so her thought is free to-day, and 
man is free among New England hills, and under New England 
laws, as he is free nowhere else on earth. New England believed 
in men and liberty at Plymouth Rock, and when on the shore 
of that far island on the southern coast, one of New England's 
sons lay buried with the dusky men he led— for they " buried 
Shaw with his niggers" at Fort Wagner — Shaw still repre- 
sented New England, and the New England idea of manhood 
and liberty. {Applause.) 

But New England not only believed in men— she not only 
believed in liberty for men, but she believed in liberty that 
was regulated by law. She recognized the doctrine of responsi- 
bility. She recognizes forever the doctrine of penalty. She 
teaches that, saint or sinner, if a man puts his finger in the fire 
it will be burned ; that free or slave, if the State err against 
justice, the State will suffer. Thus she taught -this final truth 
that penalty follows the violation of law, and that the truest 
liberty, is the liberty that recognizes the rights of others, and 
bows to the sanctity of law. {Applause.) 

And so New England . logically believed in work. Her 
founders came and they built the new State in the shadow 
of the old New England forest, and on the hard soil of old 
New England rock. But with work of brain and hand. New 
England has made an Eden out of rock and wilderness. 

More than this she believed in education. The clergymen, 
who gathered their poor three hundred books, and" founded 
Yale College, and those who founded Harvard, were the same 
men that built the common school. Thus she educated her 
children through and through. 

More than this, recognizing manhood, recognizing liberty, 
recognizing responsibility, believing in work, believing in edu- 
cation. New England believed in self government, and she laid 
the Town meeting, as the very corner-stone of our free institu- 
tions. The pendulum has swung far, but I believe, gentlemen, 
that this original New England idea is the only seed corn from 



33 

which good government can come in a free State — the Town 
meeting. I would that we could go back here in our own 
loved city of Brooklyn to the idea of the Town meeting, and 
have just what government, and no better government than 
we are fit for and capable of giving to ourselves. {Applause.) 

New England believed that the public service is for the 
public good, and not for the party, or for the politician. 

She believed, and this crowned New England belief — New 
England believed earnestly, manfully, loyally, in the divine 
duty of believing. She recognized that faith underlies human 
effort. She recognized that there is a Divine Power above; 
she recognized that there is an eternal hereafter. She 
believed that no man does a great work unless he is energized 
and impelled by the tremendous power of an absolute belief; 
and so New England crowned all her creed with that sublime, 
that holiest, that highest attitude of man, belief in what is 
above, belief in what is beyond, and in this belief New England 
has gone forth and conquered the thought and culture, and 
compelled the progress of our people. {Applause^ 



The Chairman : — Let us fill our glasses for the next regular 
toast, 

"The Landing of the Pilgrims an Important Step in 
THE Evolution of Man." 

Our honored friend who is to expound this text, is at once, 
witness and advocate. He is a strong case of individual 
evolution. It seems the other day that my young friend, with 
Excelsior as his motto, was admitted to the bar, — he was quickly 
at its head ; thence he marched to Washington, and became 
the Attorney General of the United States; soon he conducted 
the defense on the famed impeachment of President Johnson ; 
we next behold him representing our government at Geneva 
before the council which determined the relations of this 
country with Great Britain growing out of the rebellion ; again, 
he led in the great and vital case which was to determine by the 
Electoral Commission as to the election of President of the 
United States; and soon thereafter he became the Secretary 
3 



34 

of State. These would seem pinnacles enough — and high 
enough but — still Excelsior, soaring above the highest peak to 
a higher peak, he now appears before this august assembly, and 
will discourse to us to-night, not on individual evolution, but 
on the evolution of the race of man. Gentlemen, I need not 
introduce to you our friend, the HON. William M. Evarts. 

SPEECH OF HON. WILLIAM M. EVARTS. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of The Nezu England Society in 
Brooklyn : The first, perhaps the necessary, emotion of a citizen 
of New York, your neighbor across the river, who has had 
opportunities of eating New England dinners there, and hear- 
ing and making New England dinner speeches there, is to 
compare in his own mind, and if he find that the result of that 
comparison is consonant with politeness, to declare to you 
how, in this comparison, you stand. In the first place you 
surpass us always in the breadth and the splendor of your 
accommodations in this hall, in the numbers that you collect, 
and in the individual superiority of every one of you {laughter') 
— and in the individual superiority of every one of you — to 
each other. {Laughter^ And then as we seek from your citizens 
our favorite speakers, and you from ours your favorite speakers, 
it goes without saying that you have better speeches than we 
have. {Laughter). When Milton, the great Puritan poet, the 
greatest epic poet of the English tongue, according to the 
fashion of those days, sought inspiration from his muse, among 
his invocations was this: "What is low, raise and support.'' 
{Great laughter). That, without being poets, simply by being 
Puritans, you have done here in Brooklyn. {Laughter.) But I 
ought to warn you that though the muse answered this prayer, 
the result was " Paradise Lost." {Great latighter.) God forbid 
that any such sad disaster should come from your magnificent 
experiment. {Applause). 

This, your toast, has a tinge of the new philosophy in 
it, and to that it owes its modesty. I have never known before 
the landing of the Pilgrims, and the Pilgrims themselves, and 
the Pilgrims' descendants put only as a step in the evolution 
of the human race. We have always thought that they were, 
and were ever to continue to be, the culmination of the human 



35 

race. {Laughter) Neither is there, it seem to me, in this side 
glance at the doctrine of the evolution of our race, anything to 
encourage ancestral pride, or the worship of ancestors, which is 
the principal business of the New England Society. {Laughter.) 
Humility in regard to our ancestors, pride in ourselves, and 
hope in our posterity, is the gospel of the science of evolution. 
{Laughter.) It was fortunate Mr. President, as I think, for us, 
that this work of art before me which is intended to contrast 
the day of the landing, and the growth of our magnificent 
progress, was not strictly true ; because if, when they had built 
their block house at the top of the hill, there had been a train 
with steam up at the bottom, they would have all taken the 
first train. {Laughter.) This teaches us that man is greater 
than his circumstances, and that the New England people, 
having no circumstances at all, were greater proportionally than 
any men that ever lived. {Laughter.) 

Now, undoubtedly, the landing of the Pilgrims, the motives, 
the acts, and the consequences were, and are and always will be 
so rated and admired, an important step in the evolution of 
our race ; and what was that step looked at in this serious, 
philosophical and historical aspect? it was precisely this: that, 
from motives of moral and intellectual superiority, in the 
highest civilization that Europe and England had reached, 
they deliberately determined that when the institutions which 
had brought up the race to that degree of refinement and of 
power, were now trampling upon and oppressing the manhood, 
the religion, the conscience, and the duty of the people, they 
would do what never had been done before under like impulse 
— they would leave behind everything that was desirable in the 
circumstances of life, and would see what they could do across 
the sea, alone with God and nature. This was a sublime 
transaction. Many derided it as the mere wildness of fanati- 
cism, and expected it to go out as a candle in the desert without 
hope, leaving nothing but a warning against these extravagant 
pretensions that man was greater than kings and than churches, 
and that if a new community could once be built up, and eman- 
cipated from these oppressions, it would be an example that 
the world would never let die. It would be that prime and 
great experiment, never before capable of trial ; and, if they 
had but the strong wills, and stout hearts, and the sublime faith, 



36 

that they could cross the sea, and upon the desert and unpeo- 
pled shores could build up such a community, it would indeed 
be a step in the evolution of the race. {Applause) 

One of the first pieces of political wisdom our ancestors 
learned was this — that as numbers were to increase, as territory 
was to enlarge, as vast and varied interests were to show them- 
selves in different communities dispersed over this continent, 
they would take care that the original and principal idea — that 
is manhood and its independence — should never be choked or 
overgrown by extensive power, and to that defence of manhood 
as superior to every form of government, do we owe this great 
conception of a nation— that, in its structure, there shall be con- 
cert in what is common, without confusion of what is local and 
separate. {Applause.) And to that one idea which is the next 
political step in evolution from the defence of manhood — that 
is, the defence of local communities — we owe it that this 
government is the greatest and the strongest in the world, and at 
the same time the safest against its own aggregate powers in their 
tendency to crush individual independence under the guise of 
national strength. {Applause.) We are told that in the cabin 
of the Mayflower was composed the first written constitution 
of a political State. Now it is my duty to say, in the truth of 
history, that that first meeting had something at least of the 
notion of a packed convention, for nobody was allowed to go 
ashore until he had signed the constitution. {Laughter.) 

Well, there was another thing that the Pilgrims did not mean 
to have quenched or put out of sight or out of mind of this 
country, and that was the liberty, not of emigration, but of 
migration over this continent. They had found that that was 
their step to begin their new fabric of human institutions, by 
laying aside all that would check or hinder their growth, and 
starting afresh; they determined that there should be that 
liberty to themselves and their descendants for all time by 
securing this continent for the liberty of removal to any part 
they thought fit. See what a wonderful result has come from 
this. I have traced the liberty of the citizen ; I have traced 
the magnificent proportions of our government, which Mr. 
Gladstone, the greatest statesman of his age in England {ap- 
plause), has pronounced the greatest fabric of government that 
ever was struck out at a blow by the human mind. Now let 



37 

me ask your attention to the happy circumstances that have 
brought out in great relief the working of this hberty of migra- 
tion. As the necessity of our success was that we should be 
planted in a sterile soil, and in a rigorous climate, where, though 
vegetables would not grow and be hardy, men would, it was 
necessary that we should have some way higher than ours that 
should keep us from settling down into the softer climate of 
the South ; and that was a moral element. There was no power 
that could stop us ; we could not but be influenced by the 
seductive attractions, the rich soil, and genial clime. But 
Providence introduced upon this continent a moral element 
that should operate upon us with what the philosophers call 
the attraction of repulsion. Slavery manned the coast from 
New York City down to the Gulf, and kept our liberty loving 
men from venturing within its precincts; and then our path 
shot across it, in the line of energy and activity, of the exten- 
sion of New England influences, of climate, if not of soil. And 
mark the wonderful Providence, that just as soon as this line 
of New England settlement had reached the Pacific Ocean, 
slavery was destroyed, and all the country is now open, without 
any attraction of repulsion, and safely open to be occupied by 
New England men. New England institutions, and New England 
ideas. {Applause) When we came to the great struggle by which 
our institutions were to be tried, were these New England ideas 
suflficient for us? It is said by philosophers that at every 
critical stage of a nation's growth a resort must be had for 
vigor and for strength, to the original principles on which the 
nation is founded. And why? Because in growth only the 
strength that comes from the roots will make the structure 
stronger. We may have props from outside that hold up and 
guard and defend, but they are but temporary, and they may 
be destructive. When we came to this great struggle and the 
question was raised of manhood, although it was over abject 
and feeble masses of humanity, that were foreign to us in race, 
separated from us by the width of the world in their character 
and in their conduct, race, color and servile condition, and were, 
nevertheless, now made the battle field for man against institu- 
tions, New England people, and their successors, in race, in 
blood, in influence, were ready to fight that battle over the 
black slave, and fight it once for all. {Applause) So to, on this 



38 

question of a national government — that should have accorded 
to it only what belonged to the common interest, and should 
leave domestic institutions in care of the population that were 
affected by them— that idea we understood and seized ; and 
when the pretence was, that a nation thus constituted could not 
meet the stress and trial of civil war, we dared to try that con- 
clusion, and allowed no man to say that this great principle of 
government was not capable of extension over as large an area 
of the earth's surface as the Providence of God should give to 
our keeping. {Applause^ 

Now, gentlemen, the blood of the New England fathers, still 
flowing in their descendants, has before it the problem of our 
day, and that is whether these great ideas of man and of 
government, for our protection and growth, are capable of 
adjustment to the condition of things about us. They were 
framed, they were strengthened in a sparse population, in a 
poor country, among a frugal people ; and we now have a vast 
domain, an immense population, great wealth, and a most 
strenuous and widely dispersed personal strength and manhood, 
with all its ambitions and all its strifes; and the question is 
whether we can apply these great principles and maintain them, 
against not only kings and priests and churches — for that we 
have proved — but against all the usurpations of banded power 
that the circumstances of political organization may create in 
our midst. {Applause.) It is nothing for us if we have eman- 
cipated ourselves, and have reaped these great fruits of our free- 
dom by ridding ourselves of the ancient institutions of the world, 
if we are to breed in ourselves, under the invariable elements 
of human nature, combinations that are really to defeat, and 
to defraud the freedom of the citizen, and merely prove that 
prosperity, and power, and wealth, and numbers have provided 
for us a danger and a foe, to cope with which we are unequal. 

I remember a famous platform orator in early Republican 
times, used to amuse his audience with an anecdote which he 
told of his own early experience. He was a poor lad living 
some twelve or fifteen miles from Utica, then a great city, since 
a greater one {applause), and he used to trudge in when he had 
occasion this weary way. A benevolent gentleman riding 
alone in his sleigh invited him to ride, and the boy of fifteen 
had great satisfaction in accepting the invitation. Familiar 



39 

himself with the management of horses, and the driving of 
sleighs, it struck him that this old gentlemen did not get along 
with his team as well as he might, and after a while he intimated 
to him that if he were fatigued he would relieve him, and drive 
into Utica. " Young man," said his mentor, " there is one lesson 
that you might as well learn thus early in life, as it will save you 
a great deal of trouble, and that is that a permission to ride, 
is not an invitation to drive." {Laughter.) And now in the 
vast structure of the civil government of this great nation it 
should be understood that a permission to ride in the custom 
house or in the post office, at the public expense, is not an 
invitation to drive the car of the Government, or steer the ship 
of State. {Great applause.) 



The Chairman : — Our next toast is, 

"The Compact on 'The Mayflower.' — a good beginning 
FOR Law, Order and Liberty." 

The administration of law, the preservation of order, and 
thereby of liberty, have long been largely confided by the 
people to the eminent judge who will speak to-night, of the 
compact made by the Pilgrims before they landed from the 
Mayflozver. We shall listen with profound respect and deep 
interest to what he may say on the subject. I have honor of 
introducing the HoN. NOAH Davis. 

speech of HON. NOAH DAVIS. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen: It was an act of hardihood 
on my part to accept an invitation, unaccustomed as I am to 
the making of public speeches, to speak at all in Brooklyn— a 
city where oratory is indigenous to the soil, where eloquence 
of unsurpassed power is found in the pulpit, and the bar, and 
in public life, and is kept in its most variegated and beautiful 
form in your Storrs, as well as in your Beechers and your 
Woodfords. But it is absolute hardship to find myself placed 
next after the great and distinguished orator who has just 
taken his seat {Mr. Evarts). As I once had occasion to say 
under similar circumstances, it needs a new dictionary of words 



40 

and a new encyclopedia of ideas to follow him, and I will add 
now that it needs also a substantial change in the statutes of 
the State, so that a judge may be permitted to pronounce 
longer sentences. {Laughter.) A year ago I was invited to 
attend your New England dinner, but was unfortunately 
prevented by the death of a friend. I then congratulated 
myself that if, perchance, I should be invited to this dinner, 
I could happily cross upon your bridge, and reach this building 
on your elevated roads. But when I came to the ferry to-night 
I found myself compelled by the stream of teams to dismount 
from the carriage at the ferry and come here on foot and by 
horse-cars. You may judge how strongly my sympathies for 
you were aroused, when I crossed the river on the ferry-boat 
and saw the bridge yet unfinished, that iron kiss which New 
York is still stretching toward her sister city, and which still 
remains a poet's dream of " Linked sweetness long drawn out." 
I recall what the elevated roads and the abolition of the duty 
on quinine have done for Harlem, and all the regions there- 
about, and I truly wish that a similar Providence may fall to 
your lot, so that, with a finished bridge, leading to the plateau 
of beautiful lands in your rear, you may be ready to receive in 
the lap of Brooklyn the wealth of population which New York 
aches to pour upon you. 

But I am asked to speak to the toast which your President 
has just, read, "The Compact on the 'Mayflower' — a good 
beginning for Law, Order, and Liberty." 

Mr. President : The toast you have assigned to me awakens, 
on an occasion like this, in every New England heart, feelings 
of joy and gratitude and pride. " The compact on the May- 
flower" was indeed "a good beginning for law, order and 
liberty." It was, says one historian, " the first instrument 
probably that the world ever saw, recognizing true republican 
principles and intrusting all power in the hands of the majority." 
The Pilgrims faced the -coast of New England as a church with 
an accepted faith and an established order. But in civil polity 
their condition was chaos. As they first lay under the shelter- 
ing arm of Cape Cod, their only civil government was one of 
might — not of right. Doubtless on their voyage they had yielded 
obedience to the clearer brain, or the stronger will, or the higher 
rank in the order of their church. But these were elements of 



41 

aristocracy and not of popular liberty. There was among them 
no great lawgiver, no exalted statesman, no experienced judge, 
no trained lawyer, no tried and skillful ruler, and no philosopher 
expert in the theories of governmental science. But, better 
than all these, there was a spirit of love of each other, begotten 
by common sacrifices for a holy faith, born and reared to sturdy 
manhood amidst common perils and sufferings. It was this 
spirit, by the grace of God, that brooded over their civil chaos, 
and evolved the pure lucidity of their compact. 

For a few moments let us analyze that instrument. It com 
mences with that solemn form with which men often begin 
their last wills and testaments, " In the name of God, amen !" 
Thus it invoked the sanction and blessing, and piously acknowl- 
edged the relation of God to the creation and existence of 
human government. It then proceeds in fit language to avow 
their loyalty as subjects to the reigning king of England ; and 
to affirm that they had undertaken their voyage to plant a first 
colony in a new country " for the glory of God, the advance- 
ment of the Christian faith, and the honor of their king and 
country." These words were no empty form of idle utterance. 
They were the consummate expression of sentiments to which 
their lives had been wholly consecrated. For them they had 
accepted the disabilities of separation from the church of their 
country. For God's glory, and a simpler and severer Christian 
faith, they had borne the odium of fanaticism and the persecu- 
tions of intolerance. Driven by the rigor of law, they first 
sought a foreign home, where conscience could worship in 
peace. But an Englishman's love of England still burned in 
their hearts. They could not bear that themselves and their 
children must become aliens to her institutions and her glories ; 
and so, under the inspiration of such a faith and such a 
patriotism, they set out to found a home where they could 
have freedom to worship God, and still be Englishmen. There- 
fore it was that every word in this sublime compact is weighty 
in devotion, both to faith and to country. {Applause.) 

With this brief preface they proceed to create their govern- 
ment by a few pregnant words. We *' do by these presents 
solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and one another, 
covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body 
politic, for our better enduring and preservation, and further- 



43 

ance of the ends aforesaid ; and by virtue hereof to enact, 
constitute, and frame such just and equal laws and measures, 
acts, constitutions and offices from time to time, as shall be 
thought most convenient for the general good of the colony ; 
unto which we all promise due obedience." 

No element of republican government is lacking in this brief 
epitome. A hundred and fifty years later, the Declaration of 
Independence proclaimed the truth that all just government 
derives its powers from the consent of the governed. But the 
very genius of that pivotal truth is not merely embodied in 
the language but illustrated by the acts of these men. 

They covenant and combine themselves together " into a 
body politic." Each stands on a plane of perfect equality and 
grants the same measure of potency to the new body politic; 
and each secures to himself thereunder equal recognition and 
protection. Here is no distinction of persons — no gradations 
of rank — neither kings, lords, nor commons — but "men, high- 
minded men," bringing an equal manhood into a common fund 
to give energy to a government voluntarily created by and for 
themselves. 

And mark how clearly these men discern and announce the 
true ends of civil government. " By virtue hereof, to enact, 
constitute and frame such just and equal laws and measures, 
acts, constitutions and offices from time to time, as shall be 
thought most convenient for the general good." No more 
expressive phrase is found in the constitution of any State. 
" By virtue hereof, to enact," etc. Thus all power is limited 
by and to be derived from the written charter. All beyond is 
withheld ; and whoever seeks to exercise authority must show 
his warrant in the written instrument. Under it, all " laws, 
measures, acts, constitutions and offices" must be "just and 
equal," and " convenient for the general good." These words 
admit of no doubtful construction. They empower, but they 
restrain ; they consent, but they forbid. Whatever laws, meas- 
ures, acts, constitutions and offices, are deemed for the public 
good may be enacted or created, but justice and equality must 
pervade them, and the common good must be their aim. But 
what is most remarkable for the age in which they lived, this 
compact seeks to establish no form or creed of State religion. 
It recognizes the duty of doing all things for the glory of God 



43 

and the advancement of the Christian faith, but there is no 
syllable that interferes with freedom of conscience. It dictates 
no creed. It prescribes no form of worship. It does not even 
recognize "the church" which they brought fully organized 
from Holland. One cannot tell from the reading of the instru- 
ment whether its framers were Separatists, Dissenters, Pilgrims, 
or of any other sect of religionists. On this subject its abne- 
gation by silence is sublime. 

That the compact meant all that it said or omitted to say, 
was proved by after deeds. The body politic was set in motion 
by a free and equal election, each man casting one vote which 
was counted as cast ; and the Pilgrims disembarked with a 
government simple, but vigorous, to which all men owed and 
paid "due obedience." In the coming years for more than a 
generation, that government maintained all its original power, 
simplicity, and purity. It made laws and enforced them. It 
imposed taxes and collected them. It kept the peace and 
punished crime. It levied war, and raised and maintained 
armies. And whatever otherwise may be said or believed, it 
secured equal rights, preserved freedom of conscience, and 
administered justice. {Hearty app/mise.) 

We are apt to forget that Plymouth Colony was for many 
years an independent body politic, living under its own laws, 
and exercising its own functions. We confound the Pilgrims 
with the Puritans and other immigrants who settled Boston 
and other portions of Massachusetts, and lived under their 
own governments or charters. For them and their acts, the 
Pilgrims had no responsibility. I affirm against all comers, 
that in Plymouth Colony, while it maintained its government 
under the compact of the Mayflower, no witch was ever hanged, 
but complaints of witchcraft were rejected and condemned ; 
and no Quaker was ever executed. For many years after 
Roger Williams was driven for conscience sake from the other 
colonies of Massachusetts, he found refuge and protection in 
Plymouth. The Pilgrims treated the Indian tribes justly, but 
when wars were brought upon them by the wrongs done by 
other settlers, they fought heroically. Through war, pestilence, 
famine, the storms of winter, the heats of summer, through the 
hates and contests of religious zeal, and the cruelties of super- 
stition which raged around them, the Pilgrims of Plymouth 



44 

Colony walked the narrow path of their own religious faith ; 
but they kept unbroken the covenants of their compact, and 
held the body politic it created, pure but severe, in equal laws 
and even-handed justice to all. 

To this distinction they are entitled, as well as to the glory 
of having framed and formed a constitution and a government 
higher and purer in its republicanism than the world to that 
hour had ever known. {Applause.) 



The Chairman : — Let us fill our glasses for the next toast, 

"The Pilgrim Fathers,— What if they had Landed 
ON THE Coast of New Jersey, as Tradition 

SAYS THEY INTENDED?" 

The eloquent gentleman who will respond to this toast, had 
a narrow escape from being even better and greater than he is. 
Had the Mayfloiver put in at Amboy instead of Plymouth, he 
would have been past praise. As it is, I am sure he has some 
Pilgrim blood in his veins, else he cduld not be what he is — 
though that may be accounted for by the fact that he was 
early sent from New Jersey to New England for education. 
We warmly welcome, and shall most gladly listen to, the Hon. 
A. Q. Keasbey. 

SPEECH OF HON. A. Q. KEASBEY. 

When my valued friend, the President of the New England 
Society of Brooklyn, wrote to me, a few days ago, that there 
would be here to-night an assembly of high, mighty, and re- 
nowned statesmen, warriors, counsellors, scholars, and priests, 
of New England blood, and affectionately invited me to come 
among them, I could scarcely believe that he was in earnest. 
He knew that I was a descendant of the South Jersey Quakers. 
It was as if a poor mortal had by mistake received a ticket for 
a banquet of the gods. {Laughter.) I protested that I did not 
belong to the celestial family. He insisted that I had New 
England blood in my veins, although I did not know it. I 
assured him that I hadn't a drop. But he pressed the matter so 



45 

earnestly that he reminded me of an affecting incident I read 
the other day, of a Dutchman who had lost his child, and related 
his experience in finding him. " I lose my poy, and I go out and 
find him sitting on the curbstone. I tell him come home. He 
say he von't. He look at me ; I look at him. He begin to 
cry; I begin to cry. He feel very bad ; I feel very bad. I tole 
him stood up, an' he stand up. I put my arms aroun' his neck 
— and it vasn't him !" [Laughter.) 

I began to think that my partial friend had made some such 
absurd mistake about my family relations. But yesterday, the 
matter was all cleared up. He wrote me that I was expected 
to respond to this toast. This august assembly wanted to be 
informed what would have happened if the Mayflower had 
headed to New Jersey instead of landing upon Plymouth 
Rock. Of course nobody but a native Jerseyman could tell 
you that ; and no one could do it better than a descendant of 
the South Jersey Quakers. {Laughter.) I readily undertook 
the task. I am sorry that a long trial in which I am engaged, 
and which I must sum up to-morrow morning, has prevented 
me from giving the matter that careful consideration which 
the intricacy of the question demands. It is a very important 
question. It is one of that class of questions upon which the 
course of human history has often turned — ^like the question, 
What would have happened if Columbus had not discovered 
America ; — or, what if William the Conqueror had struck Ice- 
land or Norway instead of the British Isles; — or, what if 
Grouchy had come up sooner at Waterloo ; — or, if Romulus and 
Remus had been starved on the site of Rome instead of having 
been suckled by a kindly wolf? {Laughter.) 

It involves considerations of physiology, sociology, biology, 
ethnic and climatic conditions, and all the wonderful ologies of 
modern science, and perhaps a little ancient astrology. Indeed, 
it would have been better to have asked me to look up the 
subject before Herbert Spencer went home. But I have de- 
voted all the time I have had since the adjournment of court 
this afternoon to its investigation, and I will give you the 
results. 

I could more readily tell you some things that would not 
have happened if the Pilgrim Fathers, instead of landing on 
Plymouth Rock, had put in at Barnegat Bay. One thing — en- 



46 

tirely unimportant, to be sure, to any but myself and my de- 
scendants — I can speak of pretty certainly : / would not have 
happened, as a unit of the human family. [Laughter) My an- 
cestors were Quakers, and in their flight across the ocean, about 
two centuries ago, they deliberately headed for New Jersey and 
struck into the Delaware Bay, and settled in a town called Salem, 
in South Jersey. Now they were hanging Quakers in Boston 
about that time, and if my forefathers had found the Pilgrims 
in the Salem which they struck, they would have been hanged 
and the race would have died out — " no son of their's suc- 
ceeding." [Laughter) 

Another thing would not have happened — General Butler 
would not have been Governor of Massachusetts. Perhaps he 
would have been Governor of New Jersey, as a successor of 
General McClellan. [Laughter.) 

Another thing: There would have been no Bunker Hill 
Monument ; — at any rate, it would probably have been erected 
on Snake Hill, where wc have built the Hudson County Poor- 
house. 

Another thing — of much more national importance and sig- 
nificance : Our great system of representative government, 
with a law-making body in two branches, would probably have 
never existed, or in a profoundly modified form. This may 
seem strange, but in that minute investigation which I made 
this afternoon, I ascertained that in 1642 — only two decades 
after the famous landing — a contest arose among the Pilgrims 
about a stray pig, which soon grew into a great controversy as 
to the powers of Deputies and Assistants, which led to the 
division of the Legislature into two branches. Now it is obvi- 
ous that if the Mayflower had landed in New Jersey, this could 
not have happened. In the exuberant soil and teeming for- 
ests of that favored State there could have been no contest 
over a stray pig. All pigs were stray — wandering in wild pro- 
fusion "at their own sweet will." But on the bleak and barren 
rocks which the Pilgrim Fathers unfortunately struck, a stray 
pig speedily became a national question. 

Another thing : With the descendants and successors of the 
Pilgrim Fathers in New Jersey, William Penn could never have 
set foot upon the soil — or if he did he would have been ban- 
ished as Roger Williams and Mrs. Hutchinson were. And 



47 

then, what would have become of Pennsylvania? That great 
star would never have appeared in our galaxy — or, rather, with 
the Pilgrim Fathers and their outcome holding this command- 
ing point of the continent, Massachusetts would have become 
the central sun of the system, with New York, Virginia and 
the rest as her satellites. 

But I am to tell you what zvould have happened if your an- 
cestral craft had headed for Nezv Jersey instead of Plymouth 
Rock, as tradition says they intended, and as the extract from 
their sailing instructions read by Judge Davis— directing them 
to the north parts of Virginia — then extending to Sandy Hook, 
show that they did intend. It is difBcult to conceive the far- 
reaching consequences that would have flowed from this 
change, when we consider the immense advantages of Perth 
Amboy or Barnegat Bay, or even Salem Creek, over Plymouth 
Rock, as a landing place for pilgrims. 

I must not ask you to trust the testimony of a modern Jer- 
seyman on this subject. I must refer you to the words of 
some of your own original observers. You know that in 1664 
King Charles granted to the Duke of York all the land from 
the Delaware to Canada eastward to the ocean. The descrip- 
tion in the grant was somewhat vague in reference to our 
present knowledge of geography. It was this: "All that part 
of the main land of New England beginning at a certain place 
called or known by the name of St. Croix next adjoining to New 
Scotland in America, and from thence extending along the sea 
coast unto a certain place called Pemaquie or Pemaquid, and 
soe upp the River thereof to the furthest head of the same as 
it tendeth Northwards, and extending from thence to the River 
of Kenibeque and soe upwards by the shortest course to the 
River Canada Northwards. And also all that Island or Islands 
comonly called by the Severall name or names of Mattowacks 
or Long Island Scituate lying and being towards the West of 
Cape Cod and the Narrow Higansetts abutting upon the maine 
land betweene the two Rivers there called or knowne by the 
severall names of Connecticutte & Hudsons River and all the 
land from the West side of Connecticutte River to the East 
side of Delaware Bay, and alsoe all those several islands called 
or knowne by the names of Martin's Vinyards & Nantukes 
otherwise Nantucket." 



48 

Now we can see from these familiar names how important 
an area this grant embraced. But out of it the Duke of York 
granted in the same year, this small part, to Berkeley and Car- 
teret "all that tract of land adjacent to New England and ly- 
ing and being to the westward of Long Island and Manhitas 
Island, and bounded on the east part by the main sea and part 
by Hudsons River, and hath upon the west Delaware Bay or 
River, extendeth southward to the main ocean as farre as Cape 
May, at the mouth of Delaware Bay, and to the northward as 
farre as ye northwest branch of said Bay or River of Delaware, 
which is in fourty-one degrees and fourty minutes of latitude 
and crosseth over thence in a straight line to Hudsons River 
in fourty-one degrees of lathitude, which said tract of land is 
hereafter to be called by the name or names of Nova Cesarea 
or New Jersey." 

Though this grant of New Jersey was so small compared 
with the Duke's great domain, Colonel Nicholas, one of the 
Royal Commissioners to New England, when he came in 1665, 
and saw the country, at once wrote to the Duke protesting 
against the grant. He said, " in this grant is comprehended 
all the improveable part of your Royal Highness's Patent, and 
capable to receive twenty times more people than Long Island 
and all the remaining tracts in your Royal Highness's Patent, 
in respect not only to the quantity of land but to the sea coast 
and Delaware River, the fertility of the soyle, the neighbor- 
hood to Hudsons River, and lastly, the fair hopes of rich mines, 
and to the utter discouragement of any that shall desire to live 
under your Royal Highness's protection." 

And Samuel Maverick, another of the commissioners, wrote 
in the same strain to Lord Arlington. He said, "their bounds 
reach from the east side of Delaware River to the west side of 
Hudsons River including a vast tract of the improveable 
land within His Royal Highness's Patent. The Duke hath 
left of his Patent nothing to the west of New Yorke, and to 
the east upon the mayne about sixteen miles only from Hud- 
sons River whereon is but one poore village ; Long Island is 
very poore and inconsiderable, and besides the city there 
are but two Dutch towns more, Sopus and Albany which lye 
up the north on Hudsons River; I suppose when ye Lord 
Berkely had that grant, it was not thought he should come so 



49 

near this place, nor were ye inconveniences of it known or con- 
sidered." 

In view of this early testimony as to the vast advantages 
squandered by the prodigal duke upon the proprietors of New 
Jersey we can imagine the feelings entertained in early days as 
to the disaster of the landing of the Mayflower upon that 
desolate coast. But who can conceive the sublime heights of 
prosperity and civilization to which the sturdy descendants of 
the Pilgrim Fathers would have attained, if, instead of having 
been cast upon that barren and inhospitable rock, they had 
been borne by favoring gales into Perth Amboy, Sandy Hook 
or Barnegat Bay, or even to the Salem where I was born ! 
{Laiighte^-^j 

Under the changed conditions of the climate and soil which 
would then have surrounded them — by virtue of those princi- 
ples of social and individual evolution which have been so elo- 
quently expounded here to-night — who can tell but that the 
whole course of human history would have been changed ? 
With no Indians to fight — with the stimulus of successful farm- 
ing and mining to keep them from quarelling over grace and 
works, and fighting about " fate, free will, foreknowledge abso- 
lute" — and hanging Quakers and burning witches — who can 
place a limit to the progress of the human race that would 
have been the result ? Holding this vantage ground, the de- 
scendants of the Pilgrim Fathers would have practically ab- 
sorbed the whole country, and been able to exclaim with truth, 
" The whole unbounded continent is ours." What a glorious 
thing a New England Society Dinner would have been then ! 
How much more gushing our bursts of mutual admiration. 
{LauoJitcr.) 

I would be glad to pursue this inspiring theme more fully if 
time allowed. I will only say that while I by no means agree 
with an irreverent friend who said, " What a pity that instead 
of the Pilgrim Fathers landing on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth 
Rock had not landed on the Pilgrim Fathers." I can exclaim 
— as a native Jerseyman who knows whereof he speaks — what 
a thousand pities that the Mayflower instead of having 
been cast upon Plymouth Rock, had not been wafted to 
Perth Amboy or Barnegat Bay, as Parson Robinson intended. 
{Applause^ 
4 



50 

The Chairman : — The next regular toast is, 

"The Pilgrim Mothers." 

We expected the privilege of listening on this topic, which 
has our deepest reverence and affection, to the Rev. Dr. 
Newman of New York. The same accident which withholds 
from us the presence of General Grant deprives us also of that 
of Dr. Newman. 



The Chairman : — Let us fill our glasses to 

"The City of Brooklyn — Six Hundred Thousand 

Strong." 

In the earlier part of the evening I intimated the belief that 
our worthy young mayor was descended from one of the 
Pilgrim Fathers. As matter of fact, I believe that he has, 
also, in his veins the Dutch blood of the gallant old Admiral 
Van Tromp, who swept the seas with a broom at the mast-head 
of his frigate. Our mayor " shows his blood " by wielding the 
broom with like vigor. 



SPEECH OF HON. SETH LOW. 

Mr. ChairDian and Gcntlemeji of the New England Society : 
I am a Pilgrim, and in view of the difTerent theories that have 
been propounded to-night I ask you if I am not justified in 
saying I am a stranger? 

It seems to me that it has scarcely ever been my lot to listen, 
in one evening, to so many wild statements, and at the same 
time to have so many historical inquiries suggested. For 
instance, it has been asked by the gentleman from Plymouth 
whether I am the representative of those genial gentlemen upon 
whom they palmed off these shells for good money of the realm. 
I think I have the first requisite for being a " poor Indian " 
in being as I suppose a white man. And the same gentlemen 
suggested a historical inquiry, or rather the answer to one, in 



51 

connection with the country of Holland. I had often won- 
dered, as perhaps others had, how they happened to hit upon 
the curious names of their cities, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam. 
I think he explained it when he said that the whole country 
was a coffer dam. {LaugJitcr.^ 

Then we have had some allusions to the Bridge. I think 
the difficulty that strangers have in understanding that bridge 
is that they don't realize what kind of a bridge it is. It is not 
only " linked sweetness long drawn out," but it is also " the 
unsubstantial fabric of a dream ;" and beyond everything else it 
claims to be, I think, a suspension bridge. It has established 
this claim by suspending operations whenever it could get a 
chance. [Laughter.) 1 think that ultimately it will suspend the 
roadway, and then we shall begin to go over it ; but then that 
has not been the kind of suspension in practice hitherto. How- 
ever, I do not think — whatever its cost — that it will lead to a 
suspension of payments. Then allusion has been made to the 
utterance of the poet, and the warning suggested that in raising 
Low there might be a Paradise lost. Now it makes a great 
difference, or some difference, I venture to hope, whose Paradise 
is lost ; which I can illustrate by a fact in the practice of the 
West in their treatment of hogs. Wherever there is an 
abundance of woods with acorns mast under the trees, they 
are in the habit of turning their hogs to roam and feed. 
When it comes to be cold weather the hogs begin crowding up 
together; and the gentleman who informed me of this practice 
said that he never found an inside row yet disconcerted, and 
never found an outside row yet that didn't want to get in. 
{Laughter.) 

Then another gentlemen who spoke was very particular to 
draw a distinction, that as a matter of history I have no doubt 
would stand the test, between the Pilgrims and Puritans. It 
only constrained me to ask one question in connection with the 
present Governor of Massachusetts, who, I believe, comes from 
the county in which Salem stands — Essex County, if indeed 
he does not come from Salem itself — as to whether he is a 
descendant of the Pilgrim or the Puritan. Is he a Salem witch? 
{Laug/Uer.) 

Then it seems to me that the last speaker utterly demolished 
for himself the fabric he had been building, when he appealed 



52 

to the excellent testimony of gentlemen on the spot at the 
time as to the superiority of New Jersey over Long Island, by 
telling how many more people it could support. As I look at 
the toast attached — the sentiment attached to my text, that 
Brooklyn is a city six hundred thousand strong, and only a 
small part of Long Island, I have wondered to myself how 
many New Jerseys we could comfortably house. And yet I 
am free to concede this to him, that it is not safe to form con- 
clusions based altogether upon numbers rather than size, for 
so far as number is concerned it is possible to make a mistake 
in the count. I don't think that has happened in Brooklyn, 
however, though it happened to a wealthy Dutch farmer up 
the river who was asked how many pigs he had ; he replied 
nine, and one little one that ran round so fast he couldn't 
count him. Then, if you leave numbers and go to the ques- 
tion of size, you are familiar with the answer of the gentleman 
in regard to the size of his wife; he said, "She's small, but 
Oh! My!" And I feel rather inclined to say that of New 
Jersey — " Oh, My !" {Langhte?'.) 

But, gentlemen, if you will allow me a serious word under- 
neath all this pleasantry, it does remain that the glory and the 
strength of a city are not in its numbers but in the character of 
those who live in it. I remember that a year ago to-night the 
Mayor-elect of Brooklyn was also the guest of this Society, 
and he took that occasion to remind those present that the 
work he was called upon to do he could not do alone. And he 
ventured to say — to express the hope — that if he called upon 
any within the hearing of his voice to help him, that that help 
would not be withheld. There are in this room with us to-night 
two gentlemen, who, at great sacrifice of personal convenience 
and inclination responded to that call and have nobly served 
this city. There are others, not here, who have done the same 
thing. And it goes without saying that whatever you have 
found in the course of that gentleman's administration to 
commend has been largely, if not entirel}\ due to the quality 
of the help that has been given to him so generously. I know 
that both of these gentlemen accepted the positions which 
they hold because of the words that were spoken then, and I 
want to speak one other word, with as distinct a voice as that, 
to-night. If this city, or any city, is to be permanently well 



53 

governed it must be able to command, at all times, the services 
of some of its best men. It will not ask for them all at once, 
it will not need them all at once, but unless you put the best 
material into your offices I don't think you can expect the best 
results. I know that for some important offices this fall, efforts 
were made by those representing opinion on either side of the 
political house to induce gentlemen to accept nominations, that 
failed. I know that in some cases it was impossible for the 
gentlemen to accept, but tenders of that kind were held out 
in more than one direction, and I could have hoped that some- 
where the invitation would have been accepted. Personally 
when I have asked I have almost always had a willing response, 
but in every instance when the invitation came to accept a 
nomination, the response was uniformly, or almost uniformly, 
in the negative. 

Now, gentlemen, there is one point where, if you want good 
government, you have got to make a sacrifice. If such men as 
are here will do that, if they will give up their business when 
they have enough, and submit to personal inconvenience, and 
stand, in the face of criticism, or even defeat, I think the 
future of Brooklyn is perfectly safe; but it is in the hands of 
the six hundred thousand people of Brooklyn, and not in the 
hands of any one or any handful of her men. {Applause}) 



The Chairman : — Our closing toast is, with warm cordiality, 
" Our Sister Societies." 

This ancient Society hails with affection its beloved branch 
Society of New York {laughter), the honored president of 
which, Mr. Fiske, has been with us this evening. Love and 
fraternity, as becometh near kindred, are and ever will be 
warm and cordial between the two societies. They may ever 
rely on us, as we know we may always rely on them. 

Our early and life-long friends, the Sons of St. Nicholas, are 
represented here to-night by his Honor, the former Mayor 
Hunter, whose peaceful but vigorous reign did so much 
toward making our beautiful city what it is. We will gladly 
hear his voice. 



54 



SPEECH OF HON. JOHN W. HUNTER. 

ATr. President and Gentlemen : I have to thank you for the 
kind and cordial recognition of the society which I have the 
honor to represent. One thing may be said of this New Eng- 
land Society, it ought never to die while it dines so well. {AJj- 
p/ause.) And it is right and proper to keep up these occasions, 
for that excessive modesty which so much afflicts us seldom or 
never gets an opportunity to overcome or assert itself except 
at gatherings of this kind, when all the cardinal virtues are 
found to be resident in one nationality. While it is not claimed 
that the Dutch had an ark of their own, it might be said that 
they came in with the flood. Certainly no people ever man- 
aged to get along with the waters of the sea in better fashion. 
The ancients doubted whether this locality was land or water. 
The country had literally to be damned to be saved {laiigJiter), 
and they were the people to do it. The Dutch had, indeed, 
taken Holland. They were doers, not talkers. They had 
famous talent for silence and sturdy resistance to oppression, 
and when the invader had been driven or drowned out, their 
country was open to all oppressed and dissatisfied peoples. 
The Half Moon was of an earlier date than the Mayflower. 
The Dutch came here to establish trade with the natives. 
They were successful. They were just in their dealings. 
They bought land and paid for it, but not in clamshells. Their 
treaties of friendship with the Indian nations could not be 
broken or disturbed. The documentary history of this State 
will prove how great a barrier the kindly friendship of these 
natives was in preventing the overthrow of the English (who 
had succeeded the Dutch) in the fierce wars of the French and 
of the Latin church who sought to get possession of the whole 
country. An eminent clergyman of this city has published a 
most interesting pamphlet, claiming that "there was a mani- 
fest Providence in the fact that the Dutch rather than the Eng- 
lish first came into possession of the valleys of the Hudson and 
the Mohawk Rivers, and thus into friendly relations with the 
peaceful Six Nations, who held the key of the position in this 
great contest." The Dutch were tolerant. Governor Stuyve- 
sant, I think, did punish and imprison one Quaker, but he was 
soon reminded by the home government that that was no part 



55 

of his business, and there was no more of it. It is superfluous 
to paint the Hly or gild refined gold (the Dutch were content 
with tulips and guilders) or to tell you that all the Pilgrims 
ever knew of religious liberty they learned during their stay in 
Holland, and of how soon they forgot all about it after they 
landed on Plymouth Rock. But I was to speak only of the 
virtues of the Dutch and of their friendship for the New 
England Society and to say in hearty language of congratula- 
tion, " May you go on and prosper." 



The ^''fiirinan : — Our hearts warm toward St. Patrick, for he 
has a warm heart, as well as a clear head and strong arm. 
He and his brother Jonathan are closely, indissolubly allied. 
Their interests, and sympathies, and destiny on this side the 
sea, are one. Let us listen to the words of his honored son 
who is with us to-night — Mr. John C. McGuiRE. 

SPEECH OF JOHN C. McGUIRE, ESQ. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the New Ejigland Society: 
I am very much pleased to acknowledge and thank you for the 
friendly courtesy by which I am your guest this evening, 
representing the St. Patrick Society of Brooklyn. 

Taking the object of the New England Society as stated by 
Mr. Evarts to be the worship of your ancestors and mutual 
admiration, your Society, for a three year old baby, has made 
great progress in the objects of its existence. I listened with 
a great deal of delight, and some profit, I hope, to the eloquent 
tributes that were paid to the genius of New England and the 
virtues of New Englanders, and have no doubt that a careful 
investigation would disclose some good qualities in the New 
England character ; and I bear testimony to the fact that the 
most has been made of them. But I think it is well for the 
orators of the evening that the sister societies are so modestly 
represented here. It is owing to that fact, and to the additional 
fact that the Dutch courage of my venerable friend Mr. Hunter, 
on behalf of the St. Nicholas Society, must have oozed out, like 
Bob Acres' courage, through the palms of his hands while he was 



56 . 

getting to his feet — that the position of preeminence claimed 
by some of your speakers is not more vigorously assailed. 
During the delivery of the brilliant eulogies we have heard, it 
was with difficulty that I could keep my old friend in his seat 
and prevent him from remonstrating, hc_ labored under such 
strong emotion ; and in fact the mildness of his manner in 
responding on behalf of the St. Nicholas Society was an edifying 
surprise to me, although characteristic of him. {Applause.) But 
seriously, Mr. President, it is a good thing that the virtues of 
our ancestors should remain with us, and that we should suffer 
their faults to die and be buried with them ; and that the great 
characters and achievements of the people who have gone 
before us should be held up for the study and emulation of 
their posterity. But I take it to be an historical truth, and 
even a Providential fact, that in this country from the founda- 
tion of our institutions, through all the struggles and vicissitudes 
of war, and commercial enterprise, and industr}% which have 
resulted in making her the premier nation of the earth, that 
there is no man who can claim for any race or class that it was 
they who did it ; that this nation to-day is the result of the 
virtue and the energy of a variety of races and peoples ; and 
no man, who properly appreciates the mission of this country 
in the world, and to humanity, and who loves the country 
as he ought, will fail to thank God that it is so. {Great 
applause.) 



PROCEEDINGS 



Fourth Annual Meeting 



Fourth Annual Festival 



The New England Society 



IN THE CITY OF BROOKLYN, 



Including a paper read before the Society, November 4, 1882, by Noah 

Porter, D.D. , LL.D., on "The New England Meeting House;" and 

A paper read before the Society, November 13, 1883, by Judge 

Calvin E. Pratt on " The Old District School House." 



Officers, Directors, Council. Members. 
Standing Committees, 

AND 

By-Laws of the Society. 



CONTENTS. 



Objects of the Society, . . . . 

Terms of Membership, ..... 

Applications for Membership, . . . . 

Officers, ....... 

Directors, ..... . . . 

Council, ... .... 

Standing Committees, . . . . . 

Report of Fourth Annual Meeting, 
President's Fourth Annual Report, 
Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Festival, 
Grace, Rev. Dr. Frederick A. Farley, 
Menu, . . ...... 

Address of President Silliman, 
Speech of the President of the United States, 
" General U. S. Grant, . 

" Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, 

" Rev. Dr. J. P. Newman, 

" Hon. Horace Russell, 

Letter of Hon. Franklin Edson, 

" Hon. Charles Francis Adams, Jr., 

" Hon. Theodore W. Dwight, 

Speech of Rev. Dr. A. P. Putnam, 
" Hon. Stewart L. Woodford, 

" Hon. Seth Low, . . . . 

" Hon. John W. Hunter, 

" William Sullivan, Esq. . 

Paper on "The New England Meeting House," 

" "The Old District School House," . 
By-Laws, ....... 

Honoraiy Members, ...... 

Life Members, ...... 

Annual Members, ...... 

Meetings of the Society, .... 

Form of Bequest, ...... 



3 
3 
3 
4 
5 
5 
6 

7 
7 
13 
14 
14 
15 

21 
22 
22 
29 
33 

37 
38 
38 
40 

45 

47 

50 

51 

53 

83 

97 

103 

103 

104 

109 

109 



OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY. 



The New England Society in the City of Brooklyn is incorporated and 
organized, to commemorate the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers ; to encourage the 
study of New England history ; to establish a library, and to promote charity, 
good fellowship and social intercourse among its members. 



TERMS OF MEMBERSHIP. 



Admission Fee, $10.00 

Annual Dues, . . . . . 5.00 

Life Membership, besides Admission Fee, . 50.00 

Payable at Election, except Annual Dues, which are payable in January 0/ each year. 

Any member of the Society in good standing may become a Life Member on 
paying to the Treasurer the sum of fifty dollars ; or on paying a sum which in 
addition to dues previously paid by him shall amount to fifty dollars, and thereafter 
such member shall be exempt from further payment of dues. 

Any male person of good moral character, who is a native or descendant of a 
native of any of the New England States, and who is eighteen years old or more 
is eligible. 

If in the judgment of the Board of Directors, they are in need of it, the widow 
or children of any deceased member shall receive from the funds of the Society, a 
sum equal to five times the amount such deceased member has paid to the Society. 

The friends of a deceased member are requested to give to the Historiographer 
early information of the time and place of his birth and death, with brief incidents 
of his life for publication in our annual report. Members who change their address 
should give the Secretary early notice. 

^^" It is desirable to have all worthy gentlemen of New England descent 
residing in Brooklyn, become members of the Society. Members are requested 
to send applications of their friends for membership to the Secretary. 

Address, 

STEPHEN B. BO^Y.?,, Recording Secretary. 

199 Montague Street, Brooklyn. 



OFFICERS. 
1883-1884. 



President : 
BENJAMIN D. SILLIMAN. 



First Vice-President : 
JOHN WINSLOW. 



Second Vice-President : 
CHARLES STORRS. 



Treasurer : 
WILLIAM B. KENDALL. 



Recording Secretary : 
STEPHEN B. NOYES. 



Corresponding Secretary : 
Rev. A. P. PUTNAM. 



Historiog7-apher : 
STEPHEN B. NOYES. 



Librarian : 
Rev. W. H. WHITTEMORE. 



DIRECTORS. 



For One Year: 

William H. Lyon, William B. Kendall, 

Charles Storks. 

For Two Years : 

John Winslow, Calvin E. Pratt, 

Asa W. Tenney. 

For Three Years : 

Ripley Ropes, A. S. Barnes, 

Henry W. Slocum. 

For Four Years : 

Benjamin D. Silliman, Hiram W. Hunt, 

George H. Fisher. 



COUNCIL. 



A. A. Low, 

Alexander M. White. 
S. B. Chittenden, 
E. H. R. Lyman, 
Stewart L. Woodford, 
Benj. F. Tracy, 
Charles Pratt, 
Joshua M. Van Cott, 
Henry E. Pierrepont, 
Charles L. Benedict, 



Albert E. Lamb, 
Charles E. West, 
Thomas H. Rodman, 
Augustus Storrs, 
Arthur Mathewson, 
D. L. Northrup, 
tiENRY Sanger, 
W. B. Dickerman. 
H. W. Maxwell, 
Seth Low, 



A. T. Plummer, 
Isaac H. Cary, Jr., 
Wm. Aug. White, 
Thomas S. Moore, 
W. R. Bunker, 
Darwin R. James, 
James R. Cowing, 
A. C. Barnes, 
Frederic Cromwell, 
H. E. Dodge. 



STANDING COMMITTEES. 



Finayice . 

Charles Storrs, William H. Lyon, 

George H. Fisher. 



Charity : 

Ripley Roi-es, Henry W. Slocum, 

Asa W. Tenney. 



Invitations : 

Benjamin D. Silliman, Rev. A. P. Putnam, 

John Winslow. 



A n n nal Festival : 

Hiram W. Hunt, W. B. Dickerman. 

Albert E. Lamb. 



Piiblicatiotis : 
John Winslow, A. S. Barnes, 



Charles Storrs. 



THE FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 



The Fourth Annual Meeting of The New England Society in the City of 
Brooklyn was held in the Directors' Roona in the Academy of Music, Wednesday 
Evening, December 5th, 1883. 

Mr. John Winslow, first Vice-President of the Society, called the meeting to 
order and officiated as Chairman. 

The Minutes of the Third Annual Meeting, held December 6th, 1882, were 
read and approved. 

On motion, Mr. Nelson G. Carman and Mr. Henry Pratt were elected 
members of the Soicety. 

Mr. William B. Kendall, Treasurer of the Society, presented his annual report, 
showing a balance on hand of $9,879.11, which was, on motion, approved and 
ordered to be placed on file. There was appended to the Treasurer's report a 
certificate signed by the Finance Committee, that the same had been e.xamined 
and found correct. 

In the absence of the President, his Annual Report was presented which was 
as follows : 



PRESIDENT'S FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT. 

Gentlemen of The Netv England Society in the City of Brooklyn : In complying 
with the Sixth Article of the By-Laws, which requires that at each annual meeting 
the President shall make a report stating such matters as he may deem of interest 
or importance to the Society, little more need be done than to reiterate what has 
been said at the previous annual meetings respecting its good condition, and its 
present, and the prospect of its continued, usefulness. 

Our financial condition is entirely satisfactory. The report last year of the 
Hon. William B. Kendall, the Treasurer, showed that on the 28th of November, 
1882, the balance in the Treasury was $8,780.43. His report for the present year 
states the balance on the 28th of November, 1883, to be $9,879.11. 

By Article XXIV of the By-Laws it is provided that, if in the judgment of the 
Board of Directors, they are in need of it, the widow or children of any deceased 
member shall receive from the funds of the Society, a sum equal to five times the 
amount such deceased member has paid to the Society ; such sum to be paid in 
equal annual payments for five successive years after the decease of such member. 
The said annuity shall not be paid to any such widow after she shall have married 
again, but shall be paid to such of the children as are not able to earn their 
subsistence. 



The good state of the fund already accumulated, and its increase which we 
may confidently expect, will render this clause one of some benefit in future years 
to the families of such members, if any, as may meet with pecuniary reverses. 
Each succeeding year of their membership will increase the value of this provision 
by increasing the amount on which, in case of disaster, their families may rely. 

The membership of the Society is steadily extending, as will be seen by the 
report of the Recording Secretary, Albert E. Lamb, Esq., by which it appears 
that the number of members at this time is four hundred and thirty. 

The Annual Festival of December 2ist, 1882, was, like those of preceding 
years, not only sumptuous and elegant in all its provisions and appointments, but 
an intellectual feast not to be forgotten by those who were present. 

Among our guests to whose addresses all listened with very great satisfaction 
were Col. W. T. Vilas of Wisconsin, Hon. William F. Davis of Plymouth, Massa- 
chusetts, fleneral Stewart L. Woodford of Brooklyn, Hon. William M. Evarts and 
Hon. Noah Davis of New York, Hon. A. Q. Keasbey of New Jersey, Hon. 
Seth Low, Hon. John W. Hunter, and Hon. John C. Maguire, — the two last 
gentlemen representing respectively the St. Nicholas and .St. Patrick Societies of 
this City. 

We have good reason for believing that the approaching Festival, to be held 
on the 2 1st of the present month, will be most attractive. Very eminent and 
eloquent persons liave accepted invitations to be present, and the preparations for 
the feast make it certain that none will go away hungered or athirst. 

At the time of each of the previous festivals there has been some dissatisfaction 
because of the inability of members, at the last hour, to obtain tickets. But it is 
obviously and absolutely necessary that the committee having the subject in charge 
should seasonably know how many, and who, are to be present, and to make 
arrangements accordingly. They, therefore, give notice that tickets can be 
obtained, by members only, until the loth of December, — that up to that time 
members can, and no others can, procure them, and that after that date, such 
tickets, if any, as may then be undisposed of, will be furnished to applicants, 
whether members or not, in the order in which they may be called for. It is 
indispensable, therefore, that such members as design to attend the Dinner, and 
wish to be certain of doing so, shall apply for their tickets by or before the lOth. 
A large number have already made such application, and those who would be sure 
to avoid disappointment should not omit doing so beyond the date named. 

In this connection, I cannot refrain from saying that the Society is under 
special obligation to Messrs. Putnam and Winslow of the Committee on Invitations ; 
and to Messrs. Kendall, Hunt and Pratt, of the Committee on the Annual Festival. 
Members generally have little idea of the amount of time, and of the amount of 
labor, necessarily bestowed by tliose gentlemen in the preparations requisite to 
secure the great success which has attended these banquets. 

The Directors have reluctantly accepted the resignation of Mr. Hunt from the 
latter Committee, for his services were invaluable, but the state of his health left 
no alternative. Mr. W. B. Dickerman has consented, and been appointed, to 
take his place. 

On the 13th November, the Society held a general meeting, which was largely 
attended by the members and their families, in the Art Gallery. An address was 
delivered by General Calvin E. Pratt on the subject of "The old New England 
School House." It need not be added that it was full of interest, and that the 



theme was made the text for graphic descriptions of times, and scenes, and 
characters peculiar to New England in the days that are past. The report of the 
next Annual Festival will be enriched by the insertion in it of the address by 
Judge Pratt, and of that on " The New England Meeting House" delivered by 
the Rev. President Porter of Yale College, at the meeting of the Society held on 
the 4th of November, 1882. 

A suggestion has been made by Mr. Noyes, the Historiographer of the Society, 
and approved by the Board of Directors, which it is believed will be favored by 
the members of the Society generally, that a circular be sent to each, inviting him 
to furnish for record in the books of the Society a note stating the country from 
which his ancestors came to New England, the period of their arrival, the places 
of their residence, and such other particulars of their history, and the history of 
their descendants as may perpetuate a record of the family of each. It is expected 
that many will furnish such particulars, and so far as they may be received, they 
will add to the materials for New England History. 

It will be a welcome statement to the Society that the deaths among our 
members during the past year have been very few. But two are reported by 
Mr. Noyes — they were Mr. Daniel A. Sanborn and Mr. Nathaniel Harris Gary. 
The Historiographer furnishes sketches of them, and also one of Mr. Samuel 
Putnam Pope, who died in 1S82. 

They are as follows : 

Samuel Putnam Pope, the son of Elijah Pope and Eunice Prince, was born in 
Danvers, Mass., December i6th, 1844. He received his education in his native 
town and moved to New York in 1865. In 1868 he entered the employ of the 
late Henry G. Ely, and in 1876 became a member of the firm of H. G. Ely & Co 
A few weeks before his death the name was changed to Pope & Haight. 

The manliness and purity of his character caused him to be respected by all 
who knew him, while his gentleness and modest dignity endeared him to a large 
circle of friends. 

His business character is well indicated by the following resolution adopted 
with others by the I/ii/e and Leather Club, of which he was a member : 

* * -:f * * -V- 
"Resolved, that though cut off in his prime, with the promise of large influence 

and usefulness before him, we feel that he has left a name and a record not only 
worthy of imitation, but worthy also to be held in perpetual remembrance as a 
standard of commercial purity, integrity, and honor." 

* =:=*** * 

The life which promised so much ended suddenly. He passed away after a 
short illness, July 15, 1882. 

Daniel A. Sanborn was born in Charlestown, Mass., April 5, 1827. He 
received his education in the public schools of that town until fifteen years of age, 
when he became a pupil of an academy in Northfield, Mass. ; graduated from 
which he entered the office of Messrs. Felton & Parker, civil engineers, and 
devoted himself to civil engineering as a profession. On the completion of his 
studies he was employed by the Fitchburg Railroad Company to build a portion 
of its road. In 1853 he was appointed chief engineer of the Oldtown and Lincoln 
Railroad, then in process of construction in Maine. After a year's work the 
enterprise was abandoned, and he accepted the position of superintendent of the 
Delaware Railroad in Delaware, which he filled acceptably for two years, and 
then resigned to carry out a contract made with other parties to fill in the 
Back Bay in Boston. 

Later he engaged in the manufacture of bricks by steam power, in Cambridge. 
He remained in this business two years and then turned his attention to making 
insurance surveys. In 1865, he established an office in New York called the 



10 

National Insurance Diagram Bureau, where he published for the convenience of 
insurance companies maps of the principal cities and towns in the United States, 
meeting with marked success. 

In 1876, he organized his business into a stock company called the Sanborn 
Map and Publishing Company, of which he was manager. About this time his 
health became seriously impaired, nevertheless his interest in his business did not 
flag, but through years of painful invalidism and up to within a week of his death, 
which occurred April 11, 1883, gave it his closest attention. 

His wife and two of his three children survive him. 

The company which he established still exists and is in a prosperous condition. 

Nathaniel Harris Gary was born at the north end of Boston, February 22d, 
1802, and died in Brooklyn, New York, September 20th, 1S83, being in the 
eighty-second year of his age. Mr. Gary belonged to a race of boat builders and 
mast and spar makers. 

His great-grandfather, Jonathan Gary, came from Bristol, England, about the 
year 1720, and settled in Charlestown, Massachusetts, where he married and was 
the father of a large family. Pursuing his trade he soon was enabled to purchase 
a small piece of ground upon which he and his son John each built a house At 
the burning of Gharlestown by the British, June 17th, 1775, these houses were 
among the first that were swept away. Jonathan and his wife, each seventy-six 
years old, and John and his large family of young children, fled with many others 
to Reading, Mass., where they remained until after Gharlestown was evacuated by 
the British. During the war, John Gary was engaged at Gambridge, Mass., in 
building boats for Washington's army. When the family returned to Gharlestown 
they occupied for nearly one year a part of the fort which the British had 
evacuated, during which time John rebuilt his house on Maudlin Street. 

Jonathan, son of John, also a master mast and spar maker, had his mast yard 
on Wheeler's Wharf, IBoston, where some of the largest vessels of that day were 
rigged. Jonathan had four sons — William, Nathaniel, Isaac and George — who 
all served more or less of an apprenticeship with their father. William, Isaac, 
and George finally dropped the broad-axe and about the year 1874, started in 
Boston in a small way as dealers in horns, shell, coml)s, and Yankee notions. 

In 1827 they established a house in New York Gity, which at the time of the 
death of William H. Gary, in 1861, was, under the name of Gary, Howard, 
Sanger & Go., the largest importing fancy goods and notion house in this country. 

Nathaniel Harris Gary, the subject of this sketch, followed the mast and spar 
making business until about the year 1835, during which time he was connected 
with the Gharlestown, Brooklyn, and Portsmouth Navy Yards, thereby coming in 
contact with many of the naval officers of the War of the Revolution, and of 
1812, notably Gommodores Decatur and Hull. During the war of 1812-14, 
Nathaniel was of an age to see and remember much of interest. During the 
year 1814, when the British fleet was oft" Boston Harbor, Gov. Strong called upon 
the citizens of Boston to assist in throwing up earthworks in Boston and on 
Noddels Island (now East Boston). Even the public schools were closed in order 
to allow the larger boys to assist, Nathaniel's duty being to carry his father's 
dinner down to him while at work on the earthworks. Nathaniel distinctly 
remembered the excitement at the time when the Frigate Gonstitution returned to 
Boston after having destroyed the British Ship Guerriere outside the harbor. 

About the year 1830 Nathaniel came to Brooklyn, where he remained until 
1840, being engaged at the Navy Yard, and afterward with his brothers in the 
fancy goods business. 

About the year 1841 he was sent by his brothers, William and Isaac, to 
Whetmore Island in the Penobscot River, Maine, to superintend a large lumber 
interest there. 

From 1850 to 1870 he quietly lived with his family at Lexington, and at 
Jamaica Plains, Mass. During the war of the Rebellion, his great love for his 
country prompted him to do all that he could for the great cause at stake. Being 
at that time sixty years of age he could not go to the front himself; but his 
patriotism would not allow him to take from the ranks of a Boston regiment a 
schoolboy son, then much under age. While residing at Jamaica Plains, his 
second son, J. George Gary, entered Harvard Law School. During the second 



11 

year of his term, at the age of twenty-three, he was taken with typhoid fever and 
died. This was a terrible blow to the now aged parents, and in the Spring of 1871 
they moved to Brooklyn again to be near their only remaining son, Isaac Harris 
Gary (also a member of this Society), who was permanently settled here. 

Although Mr. Gary reached the age of four score years he did not seem a very 
old man, being quite active in body and mind until his last short sickness His 
careful home training by a dearly loved mother, who died when he had attained 
the age of nineteen years, was never forgotten, and he was enabled to participate 
in the house-warmings, the launches, and the festive days of "Ye Olden Times," 
without retaining any of their evil effects. The latter years of Mr. Gary's life 
were spent as quietly and peacefully as were his earlier years active and exciting. 
He was warm-hearted and kindly by nature, generous in proportion to his means. 
Mr. Gary was a member and constant attendant of the Unitarian Ghurch, and an 
intense lover of " Old New England " and her glorious history. 

His remains now lie interred at Forest Hill Gemetery, Jamaica Plains, Mass. 

On motion, this report was accepted and ordered to be spread upon the 
minutes, and also to be published in the Annual Report issued by the Society. 

On motion, Messrs. Benjamin D. Silliman, Hiram W. Hunt, and George H. 
Fisher, were nominated Directors for the ensuing four years, and the Secretary 
was empowered and directed to cast a single ballot for their election, which being 
done, they were declared elected. 

Adjourned. 

ALBERT E. LAMB, 

Recording Secretary. 



Proceedings and S] 



ROCEEDINGS AND OPEECHES 

AT THE 

FOURTH ANNUAL FESTIVAL 

HELD 

December 21st, 1883, 

/;/ coni7nemoration of the Tivo Hundred and Sixty-third A?iniversary 
of the Landing of the Pilgri^ns. 



The Fourth Annual Festival of The New England Society in 
the City of Brooklyn, was held in the Assembly Room of the 
Academy of Music, and in the Art Room adjoining, Friday 
evening, December 21st, 1883. 

Without the weather was clear and cold, an ''old time" fall of 
snow lay deep and white throughout the city. It was, indeed, a 
night for feasting and for commemorating the landing of the Pilgrim 
Fathers. 

A Reception was held in the Art Room from half past five until 
half past six o'clock, and then all present entered the Assembly 
Room and took their allotted seats. This room was brilliantly 
illuminated and elaborately and tastefully decorated. The coat-of- 
arms of each of the thirteen original States — alternating with shields 
and golden horseshoes but separated therefrom with national flags 
gracefully festooned — adorned the walls. Long streamers of .red, 
white and blue bunting drooped from the central chandelier and 
were caught up along the sides. The tables were decorated with 
baskets and boquets of cut flowers, ferns and holly, and potted 
cactuses, and other plants, which filled the air with a delicious 
perfume. 

Including guests, there were two hundred and ninety-eight 
present. 

At the guests' table were seated, on the right of the President, 
President Chester A. Arthur, Hon. Horace Russell, Hon. Seth Low, 
Hon. Stewart L. Woodford, and Rev. Dr. A. P. Putnam; on the left. 
Gen. U. S. Grant, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, Rev. Dr. Frederick 
A. Farley, Rev. Dr. John P. Newman, William Sullivan, Esq., and 
Hon. John W. Hunter. 



14 

GRACE. 

REV. DR. FREDERICK A. FARLEY. 

Our Heavenly Father, wc thank Thee that the children of 
the Pilgrims are permitted to meet together once more, on this 
festive occasion, to commemorate the virtues of their fathers, 
to call to mind the blessings Thou hast bestowed upon them 
and their children, and at Thy table to look unto Thee with 
grateful hearts, and ascribe thanksgiving unto Thee for all the 
mercies which from generation to generation have attended 
their descendants. We ask Thy presence and Thy blessing with 
us, at this festal board, and may all things redound to Thy 
praise and glory ; we ask it in the name of Christ, our Saviour, 
Amen. 



MENU. 



Shrimp. 



Sea Bass, Joinville. 



Oysters. 

Soups. 

Fish . 



Beef. 



Sheepshead a la Chambord. 



Potatoes. 




Relevtf. 




Filet of Beef. 




string Beans. 




Entries. 




Stuffed Capon. 


Terrapin, Nevvburg 


French Peas. 


Celery. 


Roman Punch. 




Roasts. 




Canvas-back Duck. 


Quail. 


Lettuce Salad. 




Sweets. 




Cakes. Ice Cream. 


Fruits. 


Cheese. 




Coffee. 





15 

ADDRESS BY HON. B. D. SILLIMAN, 
President of the Society. 
Gentlemen of the Nezv Ejig/and Society: A proclaimed 
purpose of this Society is the commemoration of the Landing 
of the Pilgrims. If this were its only purpose there would be 
little need of its existence — for that event will never be 
forgotten, or unheeded. The Plymouth Rock is the corner 
stone of our great national edifice, which, as we trust and 
believe, will be as enduring as the rock itself. The elTacing 
hand of time, instead of obliterating, has but inscribed in 
deeper and imperishable characters the record of the Pilo-rims, 
their noble aims and their grand achievements. Two hundred 
and sixty-three years of steady progress, and of final triumph 
of religious and civil liberty, and of the full equality of all 
men before the law throughout this land, bear witness of the 
wisdom, the sacrifices, the courage and the conquests of the 
Pilgrims, and the Puritans who followed them. 

At length the interests and principles of dilTerent sections 
of our country have ceased to conflict ; sectional passions no 
longer rage, and none are left to upbraid New England and 
her history save the small and feeble tribe— bless their ignorant 
souls!— who still prate of her "intolerance;" of the "Blue 
Laws of Connecticut," and the " hanging of witches at Salem." 
These seem, in _their view, to constitute the history of New 
England. They innocently suppose that putting witches to 
death was an invention of the Pilgrims, while, as was lately 
said by our friend, Mr. John Winslow— himself the last survivor 
of the Pilgrim fathers— (A?7/^/^/rr)— the other Pilgrims had gone 
to heaven half a century before the witches were hanged ; and, 
as we all know, another half century passed before England 
repealed the laws requiring such executions. 

So, too, these lingering upbraiders do not know that a lar^^e 
part, if not most, of what are termed the B/tie Laivs are simply 
fabrications arid never had existence, and that few, if any, of 
those which were enacted were more stringent, or intolerant, for 
their day and generation than were contemporary laws in other 
colonies. All were in conformity to the spirit of the age in 
which they were enacted. There was compulsory religion in 
those days. Thus, in Virgitiia every man was required to have 



16 

his children baptized, under a penalty of two thousand pounds 
of tobacco for each omission. Teaching any other catechism 
than that of the Church of England was forbidden. Everybody 
was required to attend church on Sunday and remain there 
during the whole service, under a penalty of fifty pounds of 
tobacco. Each county was required to have a pillory, a pair of 
stocks, a whipping post and a ducking stool, and every woman 
guilty of slander was ducked. If the degree of her offense 
exceeded five hundred pounds of tobacco, she was ducked 
again for every five hundred pounds, unless her husband would 
pay the tobacco. Quakers were forbidden to hold Quaker 
meetings under penalty of two hundred pounds of tobacco 
each, for the first offense, five hundred pounds for the second 
offense, and banishment from the colony for the third. Every 
master of a vessel bringing any Quaker to Virginia to reside 
there, was punishable by a fine of five thousand pounds of 
tobacco, and required to carry the Quaker out of the country 
again. 

Indeed, the Quakers were dealt with roughly, not only in 
Virginia and Massachussets, but almost everywhere except in 
Rhode Island. In New York they were treated by the Dutch 
with special intolerance. One person who had been guilty of 
giving a night's lodging to a banished Quakeress at Gravesend 
(in this county), and another for permitting Quaker meetings 
on his premises in Jamaica, and others at Flushing for the like 
offense, were fined and banished from the colony. In 1657 
some residents of Flushing presented to the Governor a humble 
petition that Quakers might be tolerated. It was indignantly 
rejected, and the petitioners escaped severe punishment only 
by abject promises not to repeat the offense. The ringleader 
who drew up the petition was removed from the office, {Schout), 
which he held, and was fined and banished from the colony. 

Baptists fared little, if at all, better. 

In Barbadoes (another English colony) any omission of 
family prayers was punishable by a fine of forty pounds of 
sugar. Everybody was required to attend church twice a 
day under a penalty of ten pounds of cotton, and profanity 
was punished by a fine of four pounds of sugar. Why 
offenses respecting family prayer and profanity were punishable 
in sugar, while non-church-going was punishable in cotton. 



17 

does not appear. Perhaps these penalties were regarded as 
"discriminating duties" lor the "incidental protection" of 
domestic manufactures. {Laughter.) 

In Nczv York public houses were required to be kept shut 
and no liquor sold, and nobody allowed to travel on Sunday. 
Not only Quakers, and Baptists, but Roman Catholics were 
subjects of special proscription. It was ordained that "all 
Jesuits, seminary priests, missionaries or other ecclesiastical 
persons, made or ordained by any power or jurisdiction, derived 
or pretended from the Pope or See of Rome, residing within 
the province, shall depart the same on or before the ist of 
November, 1700. If any such remain, or come into the 
province after that date he shall be deemed an incendiary, a 
disturber of the public peace and safety, and an enemy to the 
true Christian religion, and shall suffer perpetual imprisonment, 
and if being so imprisoned he shall break prison and make his 
escape and afterward be retaken, he shall suffer such pains of 
death, penalties and forfeiture as in cases of felony." It was 
further enacted that any one receiving, harboring, relieving or 
concealing any such Jesuit, priest, or other person of the 
Romish clergy should be fined ;^200, sit in the pillory three 
days, and give security for future good behavior, and any 
justice of the peace might commit for trial any person, even 
on suspicion, of his being of the Romish clergy. And all this 
was enacted in our beloved State of New York (now, by 
occupation, one of the New England States), as late as the 
year 1700 — nearly eighty years after the landing at Plymouth. 
No longer ago than by our State Constitution of 1777 it was 
provided that no minister of the Gospel, or priest of any 
denomination should thereafter, under any pretense, or descrip- 
tion whatever, hold any military office or place within this 
State. It is only since the repeal of this oppressive law 
that our Brooklyn regiments have had the benefit of clergy, 
{Laughter, and cJieers for Mr. Beecher.) 

In Maryland any person denying the doctrine of the 
Trinity was for the first offense bored through the tongue, and 
fined ; for the second offense he was branded on the forehead 
with the letter B and made to pay 40 shillings, and for the third 
offense was put to death. 



38 

But I forbear further reference to the intolerant laws of 
other colonies than those of New England. Such as have 
been named are cited, not as evidence that the people of those 
colonies were narrow minded and persecuting, nor as set-offs 
for like rigidity in New England, but as showing that they 
were all according to the light, or rather the darkness, of the 
age, and that the austerity of the Puritan laws (some of which 
were re-enactments of statutes set forth in the Books of 
Exodus and Leviticus) was not peculiar to the Puritans, but to 
the day in which they lived. They were all liberal compared 
with others which preceded them in other parts of Christendom. 
The earlier history of religion is a history of persecution. The 
severest intolerance of the colonists of this country was broad 
license compared with the persecutions of former periods. 
Indeed, absolute religious liberty can hardly be said to have 
existed in any country until it was attained in our own. The 
Constitution of the United States declared that no religious 
test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or 
public trust under the United States, and that Congress shall 
make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibit 
the free exercise thereof. At the time when the laws existed 
which have been cited, the colonists, amid their intense convic- 
tions, were honestly seeking truth and freedom, and we are 
reaping the harvest of which they, even then, were sowing the 
seed. They all manifested their zeal for what they believed 
the truth by extremity of personal sacrifices to which we are 
strangers. They are to be judged, not by the light which we 
have, but by the light which they had. 

It has never been a fault of New England to cherish error. 
On the contrary, she has ever been a restless pioneer, in every 
inquiry, in every advance, in search of every truth affecting the 
well being of man, and she has been, and is, as quick to renounce 
a heresy, when convinced that it is such, as she had been to 
enforce it when believing it to be right. We, descendants of 
New England, revere the sturdy virtue of the Pilgrims and the 
Puritans. As Charles Kingsley says : " We glory in the muscle, 
the God-fearing valor and earnestness of the old heroes, and 
trust we should have believed with them, had we lived in those 
days, for want of any better belief. But it will not do now. 
The bed is too short, the cloak too narrow." 



19 

But, gentlemen, proud as we are of them, is it quite certain 
that they would be as proud of us? Doubtless they would 
behold in our physical and political advancement what they 
had foreseen and sought to promote — they would see in our 
absolutely free and simple institutions, and broad suffrage, 
and universal education, the mature fruit of the seeds they had 
sown, the perfected edifice of which they laid the foundation, 
and designed the framework, and prepared the plan. But at 
much in our religious and moral condition they would halt. 
It would be some time before they would consent to substitute 
the diluted, flexible and unfixed theology which now so largely 
prevails, for the austere Calvinism in which they gloried, and 
which some of us can remember as it existed in New England, 
"stern, gloomy, knotted, giiarled and toughened for two hun- 
dred years in an atmosphere of religious heats and frosts and 
ecclesiastical storms." They would sorely miss some of the 
good, old, terrible doctrines which terrified and stupefied our 
childhood, but which have passed away with witches and other 
heresies. They would pause before entering the gorgeous, 
gaslighted, furnace-heated temples, with gilded walls and 
cushioned seats, and carpeted floors, and pealing organs, which 
have succeeded the dear, old, cold, cheerless meeting houses, 
with their straight backed pews and hard wood seats. They 
would not listen to the modern heresy that it is possible to 
take cold in going to meeting in stormy weather. {Laughter}) 
They would look for, and miss, the foot stoves which each man 
should carry in his hands on his way to meeting for the comfort 
of his wife and daughters. {Laughter^ They would mourn 
in finding rural life almost at an end, and everywhere, even in 
the remotest hamlets of Oregon, city ways instead of country 
ways — and, instead of honest home-spun, the latest Paris 
fashions and costliest of fabrics ; and they would recoil from 
the enervating luxury, and wild extravagance, which have 
taken the place of their homely living. 

But I must drop this theme and come to that which more 
immediately concerns us to-night. We are all here of one 
accord to testify at once our veneration for our pious ancestors, 
our good will for one another, and our regard for the good 
things of this life. We are proud and happy, too, that the 
other powers are represented by their ambassadors at our feast. 



20 

Holland is with us in the person of the venerated president of 
her St. Nicholas Society; Ireland comes by the eloquent 
vice-president of her St. Patrick Society, and our neighboring 
New England brethren by the eminent vice-president of their 
society. The church, too, sends her reverend and famed 
divines; the State its statesmen; the law its learned ex- 
pounders ; cities those whom the people have chosen to rule 
over them ; the armies their greatest captain ; and the mighty 
republic of the Western continent honors us by the presence 
of her distinguished, wise, and patriotic chief magistrate. With 
all our hearts do we bid them thrice welcome. 

Loud applause followed President Silliman's speech, the 
whole audience rising and cheering at the allusions to General 
Grant and President Arthur. 



The CJiairuian. — Gentlemen : — Fill your glasses for a toast. 
New England has never pursued a sectional, or narrow policy 
in national affairs. Great measures promoting the general 
public weal — whether conducing to her own local interest, or 
not, — such, among many others, as the appropriation of the 
public lands for populating the vast West, and thereby, dimin- 
ishing her own relative political power and importance^ — the 
liberal support of the army and navy, — the education of the 
people, — and the extencied system of internal improvements — 
have always had her steady, and unstinted support. 

And now, rejoicing as we do, in seeing at the head of the 
government, a son of New England, it is not because his 
administration has any sectional. New England policy. On the 
contrary, his enemies, if he has any, (I have never heard of 
such,) his political opponents, would freely admit that in the 
high office which he has administered with so much dignity, he 
has sought alone the common good, the general benefit, the 
highest welfare, the loftiest honor of the whole country. 

Gentlemen, let us drink to the toast, 

"The President of the United States." 

{Prolonged applause^ 



21 

SPEECH OF PRESIDENT ARTHUR. 

I heartily wish, Mr. President, that by a brilhant flash of 
silence I might illumine your mind and the minds of all my 
New England brethren here assembled, with a sense of my 
gratitude for this too flattering reception. 

" More than words can wield the matter," the warmth of 
your welcome has entered into my heart ; and alas ! to all this 
bountiful hospitality I can no other answer make, but thanks 
and thanks. 

I know that the toast which has just been offered is naught 
in itself, but the loyal and respectful tribute which at these 
annual festivities you are wont to pay the National Executive. 

Yet in the very nature of things it has to-night a wider and 
a more personal significance. For, like yourselves, I am a son 
of New England and a citizen of New York. We are bound 
together by ties of lineage and association, and are all proud 
alike of the home of our birth and the home of our adoption. 
God love them both, and protect and defend them ever, and 
grant to this Society and all its members, length of days 
and vigor of health, and an overflowing measure of prosperity. 
{Great applause). 

The Chairman. — Gentlemen : — Fill your glasses for a toast 
to another descendant of New England. 

What a history of mighty events and results is condensed 
in his name ! 

What must be the feelings of the man who, surveying the 
map of this vast empire, can reflect that, but for his own 
patriotism, wisdom, perseverance, faith and valor in guiding 
the brave men who composed our armies, that map, instead of 
representing one grand and mighty nation, would but depict 
(to use the words of Webster) " the broken and dishonored 
fragments of a once glorious Union ; states dissevered, dis- 
cordant, belligerant ; a land rent with civil feuds," and still 
" drenched in fraternal blood." 

We give, 

"A Cordial Welcome to General Grant." 

{Great applause}) 



22 



SPEECH OF GENERAL GRANT. 



Mr. President and Gentlemen of the New England Society : 
You would have saved me a great deal of nervousness and 
uneasiness if you had left me to appreciate without the toast 
the fact that I have always been cordially welcomed by the 
New England Society of Brooklyn. I have had proof before, 
not only from the New England Society but from other 
citizens, that on public occasions I have been made quite 
welcome ; and while I thank you all for it, it would have been 
a great deal easier for me to have accepted your welcomes 
without having to thank you. {Lmighter.) The fact is, I am 
so surrounded here by good speakers that I would like very 
much now to throw off on one of them {Laughter) ; and I 
think I will allot the remainder of my time to Major Beecher, 
one of the gentlemen who is fortunate in not having been born 
a hundred years earlier, as we have just learned from your 
president that his occupation as chaplain of a regiment would 
probably have rendered his life miserable. {Laughter.) 

Gentlemen, I thank you, and will leave the balance of my 
time to Mr. Beecher, to add to his. {Applause.) 



The Chairman. — The next toast is, 

"The Pilgrim and the Puritan." 

In reference to it, we shall hearken to the embodiment of 
both the Pilgrim and the Puritan, — modified only by the 
evolution of more than two centuries. 

I need not introduce the Rev. HENRY Ward Beecher. 

speech of rev. henry ward beecher. 
Gentletiicn : I returned home this noon, or afternoon, and 
found then, for the first time, several missives presenting the 
text from which I was to preach to-night. I have a good mind 
to tell you a story. {Cries of " Do ! " " Do ! " " Tell it I ") 
am afraid many of you have heard it, but if you have you can 
laugh just as if you never heard it before. Bishop Ames told 
the story, so it has a good Apostolic start, although he told it 



23 

of another Bishop. The two were riding together in the West, 
and among other things facihty in preaching from a text off- 
hand was a subject of conversation, and they finally agreed to 
try each other; and so, as the young man was to preach 
first, the Bishop would not give him the text until after the 
preliminary services were all over, and then he gave him the 
text : " And the ass opened his mouth." {Laughter.) The 
young man looked at it a moment and proceeded to say that 
all things in this world were made to praise God, even the 
lowest and the least ; the birds, and the worms, and fishes and 
animals, and even the humblest of God's creatures, all were 
made use of in the scheme of a Divine Providence. So it was 
amongst men ; the lowest and the poorest had something that 
God had enabled him to do. And the young man made a 
very nice sermon of it, and got off by the skin of his teeth. 
{Laughter.) 

The next appointment the Bishop was to try the ordeal, 
and he tried to get from the young man some inkling of what 
he was going to give him. Not a word ! But when he came 
to the pulpit and the preliminary service was over, the young 
man gave a part of the text: "Am I not thine ass?" 
{Laughter.) The Bishop looked at it, and it didn't say any- 
thing to him. " My brethren," he said, " I am to preach from 
the text 'Am I not thine ass?' We see, brethren— we see — 
'Am I not thine ass?' Brethren — 'Am I not thine ass?'" 
and turning to his young helpmeet, he said, " Yes, I think I 
am, brother!" {Great laughter.) Now, when you give me 
this toast on the very eve of this evening, and then invert the 
order and put me before Brother Newman, to whom I had 
looked to wake me up and set me agoing, I feel a little as if I 
was the ass on this occasion. {Laughter.) 

I am to speak on the subject of the Puritan and the 
Pilgrim. I suppose there is no difference between them, except 
as there is a difference between the leaves and blossoms of 
the same plant. The Pilgrim historically considered, and 
philosophically so, is nothing but a Puritan gone to bloom. 
They were at the root the same thing. One was a little more 
advanced than the other. The Pilgrim was a Puritan plus the 
Pilgrim, and the Pilgrim was a Puritan also. Now they both 
of them have their sprout and their start at that period of the 



24 

history of the mind, in Middle Europe, in which men were 
found to be worth something. Man had always been considered 
valuable if he was at the top of society; if he was a prince, a 
philosopher, a poet, an orator, a genius, a discoverer, an 
inventor, he always was thought well of. But if he was 
nothing but a plain farmer, a mechanic, a drudge, a day 
laborer, he was not worth anything, and that was the doctrine 
that reigned. We received it from antiquity. Plato, in his 
imaginary Republic would refuse a mechanic to have any 
citizenship in the Republic, and all the way down labor was 
held to be inconsistent with manhood, with the single exception 
of husbandry. A man might be a farmer and an eminent 
citizen, but in all other avocations a man that was a laborer 
was a drudge and an inferior animal. He could not rise above 
that ; and indeed in our literature — I know not how it is in the 
German and French — but until you come past the time of 
Pope and Dryden to the time of Cowper, the English literature 
is contemptuous of the common people — the mob. Now, in 
the Reformation there was developed a profounder sense of 
what a man is without regard to his accidents. He was the 
child of God and susceptible of development — evolution. All 
it required was to give him time, opportunity, and means. The 
Puritan started off on that. The Puritan undertook to give to 
the common people education, both secular and religious, and 
in that respect the Puritan and the Pilgrim walked together. 
But the Puritan sympathized with all that had gone before 
him, namely, it was necessary where man occupied the degraded 
position of an animal that they that conducted the government, 
whether it was temporal or spiritual, should substantially treat 
him as an animal — that is by force or fear. That was the law 
of government, — force or fear — the sword in the hand of the 
magistrate held in the hand of the hierarchy : and those were 
the great motives by which the under classes of man were 
restrained and held in their proper place. But the Puritan was 
the man that believed that by proper application you could 
evolve a rational, intellectual, moral being out of the animal 
man, and they went to work. All that has been alleged against 
a Puritan — that he did not love amusements and art and all 
that — is simply because amusements were the mess of pottage 
that bought the liberty of the common people ; and because 



25 

art came down laden with the superstitions and lies of antiquity, 
the Puritan set himself against them. He believed that the 
lowest man, being stimulated and educated, could be lifted up 
into dignity and knowledge — true power — and he came to 
New England for the sake of experiment. But he brought 
the ignorance that belonged to his age and to all antiquity as 
to the methods of experiment, and he fell upon those means 
by which men to this day undertake to create morality with 
force and law ; and undertook in New England, therefore, to 
expel dangers, heresies, all manner of new notions in the 
Church or in the State. He had not yet himself been educated 
to understand that a man that was susceptible to being 
unfolded and educated should be unfolded and educated by 
moral and intellectual means and not simply by coercive laws. 
All laws are two-fold ; they are either restrictive or directive ; 
in regard to the passions of men, restrictive ; in regard to 
everything that is higher than that they are merely the 
exponents of the experience of mankind, pointing men to 
what is the safest and best path for them to walk in. Now 
the Puritans did not make this distinction. They held that all 
laws should be restrictive. A man must believe the right but 
must not believe the wrong; a man must be a high tariff man 
— he must not be, I mean — I forgot in the enthusiasm of the 
moment the presence I was speaking to. {Laughter.) They 
undertook to do by coercive and restrictive laws what the 
Pilgrim first eminently and gloriously came to understand 
could be done only by moral suasion and intellectual instruction, 
and therefore the Pilgrim stood higher just as the blossom 
stands higher than the leaf that gave it birth. So the Pilgrim 
was the best specimen of the Puritan gone to blossom and to 
fruit, not to seed. Well, a small section, nominally, of those 
that settled New England were avowed Pilgrims. They did 
not persecute, it is unknown to them, those that are technically 
called Puritans — I mean Pilgrims, for the Puritans did. 

He brought with him the universal spirit and apprehension 
of the age which had given him birth and training. Whether 
the Pilgrim was ranked with the first settlers in Plymouth, or 
whether he belonged to the great body of the Puritans, every 
man that believed that human nature should be by moral 
suasion and intellectual influences brought higher, and brought 



26 

to integrity of belief and of conduct, every such man is a 
Pilgrim and not a Puritan. The application of this to our 
own times is not hard to find. We are trying to make men 
temperate by applying the Puritan standard, and not the 
Pilgrim standard. In so far as intemperance inflames the 
passions of men and works obviously and openly against 
the public weal, it falls obviously under the government of 
restrictive law, and the work of law is normal and necessary. 
But you can not raise men out of the degradation of intem- 
perance unless you can raise their understanding, their social 
purity and their moral sense, and you never can raise those by 
law. {Applause^) Law can do a great deal, but it cannot 
do that, and you cannot raise any large section of a large 
community higher than you can raise their understanding and 
their moral sense. It is a longer work, it is a harder work, it is 
a work that is not yet universally understood, but it is the 
indispensable work. Self-government is the foundation of our 
government, and no man can govern himself who is yet an 
animal, in whose head the center of authority has not gone up 
from passion to reside in the moral sense and in the spiritual 
nature of man. 

We are tempted in another case, which is like brier and 
thorns at the present day. We are called upon to limit in 
some way and to exterminate the moral leprosy of Mormonism. 
God forbid that I should say one word that would encourage 
them ! It is not a question to-night nor anywhere, as to the 
moral character of a system which is substantially a priestly 
aristocracy of the most compact and closely organized kind. 
There can be no question that, after the experience of five 
thousand years, polygamy is not the outcome of civilization, 
nor the revelation of the experience of the human race. But 
how are you going to handle it? By restrictive law? If there 
be any law that, without doing violence to higher laws, can 
give us a fair foundation on which to stand, in the name of 
humanity let us enact such laws ! I know not what they may be ; 
but let me tell you that you cannot surround a great community 
of a quarter of a million of men who believe as firmly as you 
do, and I suppose a little more firmly than you do in your 
religion {laughter), you cannot lift them up out of the soil by 
the mere leverage of law; of law, I say. It is proposed that 



37 

polygamy shall be made a crime, as it is already a vice. But 
how are you going to convict? It has been tried with signal 
disaster. How are you going to get hold of it ? Did you ever 
see a cat try to eat a wasp? {Laughte?'.) That represents the 
Government at Washington trying to eat the Mormon question. 
{Laughter.) She mumbles at it, she darts at it, but on the 
whole she doesn't chew it. {Great laugJitcr) It is proposed 
to send a commission there, such as governs in the District of 
Columbia. {Laughter.) The result of such government has 
not been such as greatly to charm me, but if there be any 
advantage in it in the name of humanity let us have a 
commission. A commission, however, is nothing but a 
mechanical force brought to bear against the intellectual and 
moral convictions of a quarter of a million of men. I see no 
way — I am open to conviction by any suggestion, but this I 
do say, that this question like every other moral question, has 
got to be treated by moral means and not by the law of 
violence. Every man that wants to extirpate any form of 
mistaken belief in politics, or in religion, by law, and stricture, 
and force, is a Puritan pure and simple. Every man that wants 
to extirpate a belief who has such faith in humanity, and in 
reason and conscience that he is willing to leave it to time and 
wait to let it be accomplished by this higher means, he is a 
Pilgrim. {Appiajise.) I am a Pilgrim ; I am not a stranger. 
Now in regard to this matter, these two instances are all that I 
give. I could employ a good many more, for the old law of 
violence is yet in our hearts very much — we are all totally 
depraved, if I may beg your pardon sir (turning to Dr. Farley). 
We are all of us bound to do everything in the spirit of 
combativeness and destructiveness ; it is our first impulse, and 
I admit that since I took on my military honors I am almost as 
pugnacious as my neighbors. I am glad to say, and I know 
that this is without any charge, that this evening I have gone 
up one grade in the military profession. My rank in the 
Brooklyn Thirteenth was only captain and chaplain ; I am now 
major. {Laughter.) I am sure there is not any hand from 
which I am more glad to receive my elevation than that of 
General Grant. {Laughter.) What we want in our time more 
than anything else is the continuance, the increasing faith of 
the people in moral and intellectual means to accomplish 



28 

anything that ought to be accompHshed among men ; and the 
glory of this government is faith in the common people. It 
takes time for fifty millions of people to turn over a question 
and look at it on all sides. There has got to be an inward 
evolution of their ideas before they come out all right, but the 
part of all governments like ours is to have patience ; to let 
men germinate ; grow inwardly. But you cannot do anything 
in a great Republic of mixed people of every nation, if you 
undertake to ride roughshod over their faults, over their 
errors, over their evils, by the even cutting of the sword of 
the law, or by any other form of absolute violence. You 
have got to wait with things that are bad, with things that 
are evil, with things that are heretical, with things that are 
wrong, until such time as by reason and moral suasion you 
can lift men up to a higher plane all over the world, if they 
will only come to America, and stay here long enough. 
{Applause) 

Now this is about all I can give you on that text just now, 
sir, but if I have left anything unsaid it is the way of the 
Methodist Church from which my successor, Dr. Newman was 
graduated, or rather, perhaps I should say, evolved. {Laughter.) 
After the sermon has been preached it is the way of the church 
to have an exhortation, and I therefore shall give the residue 
of my time — while I am not ungenerous to General Grant for 
the time he didn't want {laughter) I will imitate his excellent 
example, and as I have nothing further to say, I will say 
nothing— and hand it over to Brother Newman. {Laughter 
and applause. Three cheers zvere proposed for Mr. Beecher 
and heartily given.) 



The Chairman. — Gentlemen, the next toast is, 

"Utah: What of her Anti-Pilgrim methods?" 

Whoever drew this toast, or rather question, seems to have 
implied by its phraseology that it is an open question in the 
New England Society whether the Pilgrim or Utah method is 
the best? {Laughter.) Now, in calling on the reverend gen- 



29 

tieman who is expected to respond to it, we must disclaim any 
lack of orthodoxy on the subject. [Laughter.) 

But, to be serious, we shall listen with deep interest to the 
views of the Rev. Dr. NEWMAN as to the possibility of eradi- 
cating this local stain on the national character. His knowledge 
and words of wisdom, will be welcome to us all. 



SPEECH OF REV. J. P. NEWMAN, D.D. 

Mr. Chair)nan and Gentloucji : I think that Brother Beecher 
has preached from both of those texts, and preached both of 
the sermons: "The ass opened his mouth," and "Am I not 
thine ass?" 

He has kindly given a speech on Mormonism. I suggested 
that he should precede me because it was the ass that saw the 
angel. {Lajighter.) I know of no man in this country who 
has seen more angels than Brother Beecher; more angels of 
moral purity, of intellectual beauty, angels in art, in science, 
in patriotism and in liberty. But he has never seen an angel 
evolved. [LaKghter.) 

I take it for granted, Mr. Chairman, that in suggesting this 
toast there were good and sufficient reasons for it, and the best 
is that if we have received any good from the Pilgrim Fathers 
which we appreciate next to the priceless boon of liberty, it is 
the home life of the Republic ; a home life of duality, of 
mutual affection, and of filial regard ; a home life that has 
permeated the Nation, and out of this home life has come the 
Republic. Paley has said that from the family spring the best 
elements of the Republic. This is one reason, I take it, why 
the question is asked as to the Anti-Pilgrim methods of Utah. 
But there is another reason, viz.; that while the home life of 
the Republic has come from New England, so, also, the 
originator and strong advocate of Mormonism came from New 
England — from Vermont — Jo. Smith and Brigham Young; 
and the man who wrote what is known as the Book of Mormon 
— not the Mormon Bible, but the Book of Mormon — was not 
a Methodist, but was a Congregational clergyman. {Laiighter.) 
He was evolved. He came from New England. Now it is 
not only proper that your Society should consider this question 
in view of these facts, but also in view of another fact, that 



30 

Vermont has given to the Nation one of her foremost states- 
men, who is in the death grapple with this moral monstrosity, 
and secondly, Vermont has given to the Republic a President 
of whom we should be proud. {Cries of Hear I Hear! and 
S^rcat c/ieerin<:.) And while Senator Edmunds, not satisfied 
with the original bill is preparing a supplement to it, 
President Arthur {cheers) is proceeding to do what should 
have been done long, long ago, and that is the revocation of 
the territorial government of Utah. Call that '' restriction ?" 
Let it be restriction! For while I believe in the majesty and 
potency of law, I also believe in the restrictive element of law 
as the conservation of private and public virtue, and as a pre- 
ventive of crime. {Applause^ 

I will go as far as any man born in New England or out 
of New England in favor of culture of the intellect and moral 
force of character, to raise men to the highest manhood. 
Yet education has been a failure, and moral force has been a 
failure, when in cooperation with the two there has not been 
the third unit in the trinity, viz.: the power of restrictive law. 
The truth is, gentlemen, we are suffering to-night from pro- 
crastination. What we are trying to do at this hour should 
have been done thirty years ago. It was prophesied that 
Mormonism would be short lived. It was regarded as some- 
thing to be laughed at ; that it was a joke — an anomaly in the 
body politic inconsistent with our government that w^ould pass 
away; that it would succumb to the advance of civilization, 
and that the locomotive thundering over our transcontinental 
railways would sound its death-knell. It was also said that 
when Brighaam Young died there would be the end of the 
system which is political ecclesiasticism. All these were 
prophecies. Then came the cry for the law of 1862, and the 
law of 1862 was given. Then came the assertion that, inas- 
much as this law was considered unconstitutional, if the 
Supreme Court of the United States would declare its 
constitutionality then the evil would fade away before the 
majesty of such a decision. Very well, gentlemen, these are 
the prophecies of the past and they have not been fulfilled. 
Notwithstanding what has been accomplished the evil remains. 
What is proposed to be done? The first is, " Divide the 
Territory." Would you divide a man that had the small-pox 



31 

and scatter him around? yet that is the statesmanship that 
proposes to divide the magnificent Territory of Utah. It 
would be scattering the virus. There are some fighting parsons 
in Brooklyn. I don't mean those who in the good old days of 
yore were in favor of sending Sharp's rifles to Kansas ; the 
milk of human kindness now flows in their veins. But there 
are others who propose to send an army with Phil. Sheridan at 
their head to crush out Mormonism. While he is an obedient 
soldier, yet I take it for granted that the commander-in-chief 
will not commit such a foolish mistake as to order him on such 
a foolish crusade. 

We must remember, whatever our predjudices against the 
Mormon and his system he has his rights under the law, and 
the law must be respected. 

Now in reference to meeting the question by education, as 
has been proposed. They say send the schoolmaster, and the 
schoolmarm ! What reformers ! I hold that the only feasible 
thing is the revocation of the Territorial Government of Utah : 
in other words, to disfranchise the Mormon because he is a 
Mormon. The blunder in our legislation has been not so much 
that we disfranchised the polygamists, for that was characteristic 
of the Edmunds' bill. That was all right, but it did not go far 
enough, for he did not disfranchise the Mormon. I would not 
disfranchise him because he has another Bible and differs from 
me in his religious opinion, because I remember that while 
this government is not irreligious it is non-religious, and has 
no right to interfere by law with the religious opinions of a 
people, with this one limitation, viz.: that wherever the practice 
of a person or of a community of persons shall work injury to 
the body politic, then it is proper that the law should step in 
and restrict it. I would, therefore, treat this question not as a 
religious question, not as antagonistic to Christianity. Here is 
a practice that is contrary to the order and constitution of 
nature, and our legislators must fall back not upon the Bible, 
but upon nature itself, for nature has provided an equality — a 
numerical equality — of the sexes, so that the Apostle's com- 
mand : " Let every man have his own wife, and every woman 
her own husband," is the law. I would, therefore, legislate 
against polygamy standing upon this, that it is a fraud ; that a 
man who has twenty-five wives defrauds each woman out of 



32 

twenty-four parts of a man {great laughter), and the Mormon 
who has twenty-five wives defrauds twenty-four men out 
of their natural and constitutional rights. {Laughter.) I 
hold that the constitution of this country is based upon the 
established principles of nature. Eliminate the religious ques- 
tion and take it as a natural question. This is my idea: the 
revocation of the Territorial Government of Utah and the 
disfranchisement of the Mormon, for this simple reason that 
the Mormon is the enemy of our country, because he has 
appropriated his property to the support of an organization 
treasonable in itself, and because he has sworn to support the 
constitution of that organization notwithstanding his professed 
allegiance to the United States. And in thus disfranchising 
the Mormon we save ourselves from the perpetuity of an evil 
that is spread not only through Utah, but all the adjacent 
territories. And I put this question to you, Mr. President 
and to my dear friend Beecher, whether nearly one-eighth 
of the territory of the United States should be controlled by 
two hundred thousand persons, which is the fact to-night, 
under the constitution of the Mormon hierarchy: whether 
that shall be the fact, or whether by this disfranchisement 
we shall emancipate all these glorious terriories west of the 
Missouri, where Pilgrims and Puritans of virtue may bud and 
blossom like the rose. 

The Mormons dream of universal empire, and fancy that 
Utah is to be the centre of that kingdom, the United States 
to be a province thereof, and that all the world is to pay 
tribute thereto. There is no more absolute despot on the face 
of the globe than the man who is at the head of Mormondom, 
and yet such a despot is in our Republic and we have tolerated 
him under our flag. I hold that religious liberty is limited by 
a due respect to public decency, by the dictates of reason, by 
the welfare of society; that the law of limitation bounds 
religious liberty just as it is prevalent in the universe itself. 
All may worship here. We cannot interfere with religious 
opinions, but we can interfere with those religious practices 
that work an injury to the body politic. 

Then for womanhood, for family, for the Republic, I plead 
to-night. Holding sacred these great principles, it will never 
be said that the Rocky Mountains were reared for the tomb- 



33 

stone of this Republic, or the ocean dug for its grave, or the 
winds woven for its winding sheet. But if true to our great 
trust, that old flag that we love so much, the symbol of 
universal liberty, and of our religious privileges — that old flag 
shall wave on and wave ever, until the brightness of its stars 
shall melt in the coming glory of millenium, which shall fill our 
earth with gladness and with songs of praise unto Him who is 
the God of our fathers. {Applause^ 



The Chairman. — Our next toast is, 

"The New England Society of the City of New York." 

Our kindred across the Bridge are with us to-night, in the 
person of their honored Vice-President, whom we warmly greet 
and welcome, and by whose voice we shall be gladdened. 
Would that each and every of them were here also. Let us 
drink to the happiness and well being of the members of 
"The New England Society in the City of New York," and 
give ear to their representative, the Hon. Horace Russell. 

speech of HON. HORACE RUSSELL. 

I have listened, gentlemen, with the deepest interest to all 
that Brother Newman has said on the Mormon question, and 
I must say that I am still of the opinion of Brother Beecher, 
that the cat will not chew the wasp. The President has, 
himself, suggested to me a solution of the Mormon question 
which, I think, is more practical than that of either of the 
reverend gentlemen who have discussed that subject ; that is, 
that twenty-iive dry goods and millinery stores be established 
in Salt Lake City, and the resources of the Mormon Elders 
will at once be taxed in such a way that the Mormon question 
will be solved. {Laughter.) 

Far be it from me, gentlemen, to cast any doubts upon the 
doctrine of evolution, into a discussion of which the speakers 
at this dinner seem to have gone, but I beg to suggest to 
3 



34 

you whether there is not a httle violence in the transition from 
a Presbyterian ass to a New York Yankee, or a New England 
Gothamite. And yet, as a representative of the New England 
Society of the City of New York, I recognize the generosity 
and justice of the order in which your toasts have been 
arranged, that the representative of the Pilgrims in the City 
of New York should be put next to the " ideal Pilgrim and 
Puritan ;" for if you are looking for a simon-pure, yard wide, 
all wool, and fast colors, loose in summer and tight in winter, 
Puritan, where will you find him if not in the City of New 
York? And where will you find him in New York, if not in 
the New England Society? 

As your President has suggested, I have come here, gentle- 
men, as a substitute. That word has a certain significance to 
an American. We remember the days when a "substitute" 
represented a peculiar individual. When I was asked to 
take the position of a substitute for the President of the 
New England Society of New York, of course I at once 
inquired how much fighting I was expected to do, and what 
the bounty was, and was solemnly assured that nothing would 
be expected of me but to partake of the dinner, and so I went 
into it with all the enthusiasm of the Irishman who, during the 
war, was engaged in that occupation ; at least I suppose he 
was. His brother in New York was asked what his brother in 
Chicago was doing. He said, "Doing finely; making money; 
he'll be a rich man yet." "But what is he doing?" "In 
Chicago." "What is he doing there?" " I don't exactly know 
what the business is, but I believe they call it ' leppin' the 
bounty !' " {Laughter.) When President Cooper requested me 
to represent him in Brooklyn, the success of that Irishman was 
brought to my mind, and I thought all I would have to do in 
order to leap the bounty. But I find that I am obliged after all 
to work my passage. Instead of "leppin'" the bounty I am 
like the Irishman who applied for an opportunity to work his 
passage on the Erie Canal. They gave it to him, and set him 
to driving a mule on the tow-path, from Albany to Buffalo. 
He said he liked it, but that " only for the name of the thing 
he would as soon walk." {Laughter.) 

The New England Society of the City of New York feels 
highly honored by being invited for the first time— at least I 



think it is the first time {a voice: ^^ The second time i' the 
Secretary: "■ Every time ^'^ — to be present at this anniversary. 
I am told it is "every time," but I don't believe it. It spoils 
what I was going to say about it. I have been for several 
years on the Dinner Committee of the New England Society 
in the City of New York, and I confess that I had come to 
regard the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn as a 
gross impertinence, that had no excuse for existing, and none 
for celebrating the arrival of the Pilgrims on the 2ist instead 
of on the 22d. It interfered with our arrangements. When- 
ever we endeavored to get the President of the United States 
to come to our dinner, we were told that he could not come, 
because he had accepted an invitation to come to Brooklyn. 
{Laughter.) Even our own Evarts and Choate, the children of 
our adoption, were spirited from us and we awoke on the morn- 
ing of the 22d of December every year to find that the arrival 
of the Pilgrims had been celebrated the night before, and that 
our celebration on the 22d was to be a stale, flat and unprofit- 
able performance. Last year we imported a man from the 
North-west to speak for us, and you got him over here, and 
filled him full of I know not what, and dextrously extracted 
from him the speech which we had imported him to deliver in 
New York. [Laughter.) And year after year we gentlemen 
on the Dinner Committee in the City of New York have had 
to contend against the early rising of the City of Brooklyn, 
and found ourselves a little too late. But you have received 
us warmly here to-night, have given us a warm welcome and 
a warm dinner, and if these two things will not begin and 
cement friendship I know^ not what will. Certainly in the 
presence of your kindly welcome to-night, and the kindly 
manner you have toasted the New England Society of the 
City of New York, we forget all past animosities. We are 
your friends henceforth forevermore. We will come to your 
dinners every year, and invite you to ours, and hope you will 
come. 

I have had a pleasure here to-night, enjoyed by none of you. 
I have listened to Brother Beecher and expect to listen to 
Mr. Low. You think they are speaking to you, but I know 
that they are only getting up their second wind to speak 
to us to-morrow night. They are to be there and are going 



36 

to speak, and we in New York will have our recompense for 
turning over to you year by year our speakers whom you have 
had. I wish you were all to be there. I wish the President 
was to be there. He would receive a welcome full not only of 
the enthusiasm that we all feel toward the head of the nation, 
but of that warmth which the citizens of New York feel for 
him as a man, the undercurrent of which would be a sentiment 
of pride and gratification which New Yorkers have in him, 
because of the success with which he has administered a most 
difficult trust, assuming as he did the reins of government under 
the most trying circumstances. He has acquitted himself so 
well, and borne the honors of his high place in such a manner 
that not Brooklyn and New York City only but the whole 
State of New York can be proud of him as its citizen. {Great 
cheering). 

I invite you all, gentlemen, in behalf of the New England 
Society of the City of New York, to our feast to-morrow night. 
You will receive a warm welcome. There may not be many 
seats, but the welcome will be warm. And if you cannot be 
there I hope you will be present at the unveiling of our statue 
to our ancestors, next Spring. Remember that we are bound 
together by something more than blood and tradition — by a 
bridge. You can all come over; the statue will be beautiful; 
we shall be glad to welcome you all and have you partake in 
the celebration of that occasion. 

Now, having said all that I had in my mind to say, I again 
thank you for inviting the New England Society of the City 
of New York to the enjoyment of this Festival. I hope it will 
cement our friendship, and I wish a long and prosperous career 
to the New England Society of Brooklyn. {Applause.) 



The Chairman. — Gentlemen, we had hoped that Brooklyn's 
ambitious rival, the rival City of New York, would be repre- 
sented by her honorable Mayor to-night. We regret that he 
has been unable to come, but in his absence I will ask the 
Secretary to read a letter which has been received from him. 

Mr, Lamb then read the letter, as follows: 



37 
letter of hon. franklin edson. 

Mayor's Office, 
New York, \j December, 1883. 

Rev. a. p. Putnam, 

Secretary New Ettgland Society of City of Brooklyn, 

My dear Sir : 

I have the pleasure to acknowledge the receipt of your 
polite invitation to be present at the Fourth Annual Dinner 
of the Brooklyn New England Society, for which kind remem- 
brance I sincerely thank you. I have deferred replying fof a 
day or two, hoping to be able so to arrange my engagements 
that I might accept so cordial an invitation, and I have been 
the more desirous of doing so because I recognize among the 
names printed on your letterhead many of my acquaintances 
and many whom I reckon among my good friends. 

I sincerely regret that my efforts have failed, and that I am 
after all compelled to say to you that I shall be unable to be 
present at your reunion of New Englanders. You and your 
associates can appreciate the sincerity of my regrets, when I 
say that if there is one thing which gives me greater enjoyment 
than any other it is to renew and to dwell upon my recollections 
of New England life, and to meet those who can sympathize 
with me in my love for it and for New England people, and 
my admiration for the virtues of our ancestry, 

Believe me, with great respect, 

Very truly yours, 

FRANKLIN EDSON. 



The Chairman. — Letters have also been received from 
Charles Francis Adams, Jr., and Professor Theodore W. 
DwiGHT, of Columbia College Law School, which I will 
request the Secretary to read. 

Mr. Lamb then read the letters as follows: 



38 
letter of hon. charles francis adams, jr. 

Adams Building, 

23 Court Street, 
Boston, December 17th, 1883. 

Rev. a. p. Putnam, 

Corresponding Secretary, etc. 

Dear Sir : 

The formal invitation to attend the Dinner of the 
New England Society of Brooklyn, on Friday evening next, 
came duly to hand, as did also your private note of the same 
date. I was, at the time, in New York, and received it only this 
morning. I regret very much to say that my engagements are 
of such a character that I shall not be able to be in Brooklyn 
next Friday evening. Were it not so, I think it is unnecessary 
for me to assure you that few things would give me greater 
pleasure than to unite with your associates and yourself in 
celebrating the event of that day. Please convey to the other 
members of the committee my regrets at my inability to 
accept their invitation. 

I remain, etc., 

CHARLES F. ADAMS, Jr. 



letter of hon. theodore w. dwight. 

Columbia College Law School, 

East 49th Street, 

New York, Dec. 19, 1883. 
My dear Sir : 

I received yesterday yours of the 17th, inviting me to 
attend the meeting of the New England Society of Brooklyn 
on Friday next, and to participate in the exercises of the 
occasion. 

I appreciate the compliment implied in the invitation, and 
would most gladly accept it if it were in my power. Being of 
old New England stock, on both the paternal and maternal 



39 

side, my heart always warms toward a meeting of the New 
England Society, particularly in Brooklyn where the New 
England influence is most characteristic and potent. 1 should 
delight also to uphold the sentiment of " Liberty and Law," 
which is blazoned all over the course of New England history 
with a constant glow of light. 

Unfortunately, the requirements of business cannot be left 
out of view. I am tied down during the whole week with 
professional and other engagements which I cannot break and 
which prevent the acceptance of your flattering invitation. 

May 1 close with the following sentiment : 

Law without liberty is despotism ; 
Liberty without law is anarchy. 

Our New England ancestors discovered the art of so uniting 
liberty with law, and law with liberty, as to supply the most free 
and at the same time the most stable and conservative political 
institutions ever known to mankind. 

Thanking you personally for the very kind and courteous 
terms of your note, which were very gratifying to me, I remain, 

With much respect, 

Your very truly, 

THEODORE VV. DVVIGHT. 
The Hon. John Winslow, 

26 Court Street, Brooklyn, N. Y. 



The Chairman. — A strange word has found a place on our 
programme. It is our next toast, 

"SCROOBY." 

Whether it indicates man, woman, or child, no man knows. 

Our friend, Rev. Dr. Putnam, has lately made a suspicious 
visit to foreign lands. It is possible he may have seen him, 
her, or it, as the case may be. Perhaps he can solve the 
mystery, and tell us something about " Scrooby." 

We beof instruction from the Rev. Dr. Putnam. 



40 



SPEECH OF REV. A. P. PUTNAM, D.D. 

Mr. President and Friends of the Society : Evidently I 
have been invited to respond to this extraordinary toast, 
" Scrooby," for the simple reason that I was recently there ! 
It is a somewhat remarkable circumstance that the place was 
not identified as the seat or centre of the religious com- 
munity to which Brewster and perhaps most of his Mayflower 
companions belonged just before they left England for 
Holland, until about two hundred and forty years after their 
departure. The earlier writers, all the way down from Cotton 
Mather and Bradford, had referred their origin in a general way 
to the Northern part of the country, or various towns and 
villages on the borders of Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire and 
Yorkshire, where these three counties "come nearest together." 
But Bradford had said that the Pilgrims " ordinarily met on 
the Lord's day at his (Brewster's) house, which was a manor of 
the bishop," and it was in this simple and apparently incidental 
remark that the Rev. Joseph Hunter, an eminent and indefa- 
tigable English antiquary, found in 1849 ^ clew by which to 
solve the mystery. For, in prosecuting his inquiries, he 
ascertained that in all the region which the historians had 
described in such indefinite terms, Scrooby was the only 
locality that could boast an Archiepiscopal See about the time 
of the commencement of the seventeenth century. There 
then must have been the " manor of the bishop," and there 
also it must have been that Brewster and his brethren were 
wont to meet " on the Lord's day." Other facts soon came to 
light which proved the conclusion to be a correct one beyond 
all possibility of doubt, and thus a new and most interesting 
chapter came to be added to our previous accounts of the 
forefathers and to be introduced into some of our later books. 

" Scrooby''' is the name. Friends are asking what the word 
means — wliether it is the name of one of the Pilgrims, or of 
some historic personage of another sort, or of some river, ship, 
mountain or town ! It is astonishing, notwithstanding the re- 
cent date of the discovery, what a prevailing lack of knowledge 
and interest there has been concerning Scrooby, and it seems to 
me that the members of the New York Society must have been 
very neglectful of their duty in not acquainting the American 



41 

people more extensively with a matter of such world-wide 
importance, seeing how long that institution has been in 
existence! Who has not heard from very childhood of Brewster 
and Bradford, Winslow and Carver? Who is not familiar with 
the names of Amsterdam and Leyden and Delfthaven ? Shall 
we ever hear the last of the Mayflower and of Plymouth 
Rock ! Orators have waxed eloquent about the long winter 
voyage, and bards have sung and boys declaimed, from time 
immemorial, I had almost said : 

"The breaking waves dashed high 
On that stern and rock-bound coast." 

But nothing about Scrooby ! Just as if there ivcre no Scrooby, 
and the Pilgrims came from nowhere ! I submit, gentlemen, 
that is high time in the history of the New England Societies 
of this vicinity, that Scrooby should come to the front, and 
that it is far more deserving of our attention than such 
unsavory themes as Mormonism, and what not! 

Yet I have to confess that, though it is a place of such vast 
importance, I found it but a very small and obscure village, 
consisting chiefly of plain, brick houses or cottages of farmers. 
Near by runs the line of the Northern Railway leading from 
London to York, and, on what now is an open, level, grass- 
grown area between, once stood the ancient manor, which had 
two courts, one larger and one smaller, with the former of 
which was connected the stately hall, the front built of brick 
and the rest of wood, the whole being surrounded by a moat 
and extensive grounds and gardens beyond. Here the Arch- 
bishops of York had a favorite seat or residence, as early at 
least as the time of William the Conqueror. Here Cardinal 
Wolsey sojourned for a time just after his fall. And here, on 
certain occasions, lodged royalty itself— Henry the Eighth, and 
Margaret, Queen of Scotland, daughter of Henry the Seventh. 
At length it ceased to be an abode for the bishops and was 
leased to Brewster, who, after his great friend and patron, 
William Davison, was sent to the Tower, sought retirement 
here and was here made postmaster, having a wide district to 
serve, numerous employes and servants at his command and no 
little state to maintain, so that he required some such large 
establishment as he thus came to occupy. Yet it seems his 



4-2 

compensation at first was only twenty pence a day, though 
later it was increased to two shillings. But the Secretary of 
State himself about that time had an annual salary of only a 
hundred pounds sterling. Small as these figures may appear 
to us as compared with the pay of such officials now-a-days, it 
is not on record that the number of persons who, in the spirit 
of true self-sacrifice, were willing to serve their country as 
secretaries and postmasters, was less in that age than in our 
own. 

Brewster is thought to have more actively identified 
himself with the congregation at Scrooby in the year 1606. 
It was then that the excellent John Robinson, of blessed 
memory, came there to be the associate pastor with the 
venerable Clifton. Beyond the silvery, winding stream, named 
the Idle, and about a mile and a half away, was Austerfield, 
where was born and lived William Bradford, the future Gov- 
ernor, who, with others around him, was in vital sympathy and 
active cooperation with the central community. And belonging 
to this sect of the Brownists, or Separatists — this Puritan-of- 
Puritan movement — there were in the neighborhood various 
religious fraternities beside, in places like Gainsborough and 
Babworth and Worksop. 

A hundred years after the Pilgrims saw the old manor 
house for the last time, it had well nigh fallen to the ground. 
In 1813, nothing of it remained, except as certain portions of 
it had been incorporated into an old farm house which still 
stands near the site. With my friend. Rev. Mr. Robinson, of 
Gainsborough, who, if he is not a lineal descendant of the 
Robinson of yore, ought to have been, I wandered through 
the almost empty and certainly dreary apartments of this quaint 
and venerable pile, and then crossed the garden to a fallen and 
much decayed mulberry tree, which the always infallible voice of 
tradition says Cardinal Wolsey himself planted there during his 
visit at Scrooby, and I need not say how the actual possession 
of a bit of it also affords to one the most incontestable proof that 
the magnificent, but dishonored prelate, was once there on that 
very spot and that he really planted that self-same tree. 

Then, standing on slightly elevated ground at a little 
distance from this house and garden, and just on the outskirts 
of the village, is the small, steepled, antique church, with the 



43 

graves of the dead around it and the old vicarage hard by. It 
was there in the time of Brewster and the Pilgrims, though it 
has since undergone much change and reconstruction. A 
communion table and two or three seats or pews are pointed 
out as of the earlier date, and the ancient baptismal font — at 
which no doubt members of the Mayflower company were 
christened — after having been thrust away into a closet to make 
room for a new one, and subsequently used as a flower-pot in a 
neighboring garden, was not long ago captured by an enter- 
prising American, and borne in triumph to the Pilgrim City of 
Chicago ! 

The visitor at Scrooby may recall to some extent the 
scenes that were witnessed there centuries ago, when it was 
attempted to carry into execution the threat of King James 
that Jic WLVild harry this people out of the land or do zvJiat tvas 
ivorse. There are still the traces of the moat that once 
encircled " the manor of the bishop." There, as aforetime, are 
the cornfields and the river, the church, the vicarage and the 
graves. But it was there, there especially, that was rocked the 
cause of civil and religious liberty for a new world, when those 
who suffered for the dear Christ's sake were watched and 
dogged by cruel enemies by day and by night as they went in 
and out of their homes or met for worship on Sundays, and 
when amidst terrors and persecutions they discussed their plans 
and made their preparations for removal to more hospitable 
shores. It was as when Israel made ready to go forth out from 
the land of bondage to seek a new and better countiy. "Out 
of Egypt have I called my son." Yet not through parted seas 
and by a path that was dry and safe. The horrible betrayals, 
robberies, imprisonments, separations and ridicule that overtook 
them in their repeated, but baffled attempts, at departure — the 
darkened skies, the furious storms and deadly perils, which some 
of them encountered as at last they sailed away from their 
native isle and ere they reached their nearer destination — who 
does not know it all.? And then the reunion at length in 
Amsterdam, the longer stay at Leyden, the embarkation at 
Delfthaven, the weary and dismal voyage of the Mayflower 
across the Atlantic, and finally the landing at Plymouth Rock. 

How near it came to being a landing somewhere in our own 
vicinity ! The wanderers, we are told, first discovered Cape Cod, 



44 

but as their original intention was to sail for the Hudson, they 
now turned their course southward to find their way hither, 
borne on by a favoring breeze. Then the wind subsided, and 
shoals and breakers were descried ahead. So they put back and 
entered Plymouth Bay and founded their colony there. That 
settlement it was, that led to the establishment of the colony 
in Massachusetts Bay. The two together made New England 
what it was, has been, and is. But for those " shoals and 
breakers," what and where had been New England to-day? 
What and where had been the Dutchmen of New York, had 
the Pilgrims turned not back ? And what and where had been 
our " Sister Societies," and the eloquent speeches which we 
shall soon hear from their distinguished representatives who 
honor us with their presence to-night ? No doubt our friends 
see a cause of gratitude in that cautious return of the May- 
flower, which left to them and their ancestors some chance of 
supremacy at this great centre of American life ; and it is 
possible that they may think it had been still better for them, 
and for all concerned, if some who have since come from New 
England to New Yotk had been equally mindful of other 
" shoals and breakers " that warned them, also, to retrace their 
way ! 

But whether of English, Dutch, Irish, or whatever other 
extraction or descent, we may all well remember out of what 
rock we were hewn. Yet, standing now on these western shores 
and sharing the new life that is open to us here, we each and 
all have something more and better than any mere foreign 
element or lineage of which we may boast. Here and now 
we are Americans, from the crown of the head to the sole of 
the foot {applause), else we better never had been born. Yes, 
Americans: instinct with the love of liberty and right, 
supremely and passionately devoted to the perpetuity and 
welfare of the Republic, profoundly grateful for the priceless 
privileges and opportunities which we enjoy, and sacredly 
determined to transmit them, unimpaired, enriched and aug- 
mented, to the latest generation. {Applause) 



45 
The Chairman.- — Gentlemen, our next toast is, 
"The State of New York." 

This is a grand theme, — the home of our lives, our affec- 
tions, and our pride. 

We had hoped to hear, in response to this toast, the Hon. Mr. 
Chapin, our Comptroller elect, but he is unavoidably absent, 
and I venture to call on the Hon. STEWART L. WOODFORD, 
to take his place. 

SPEECH OF HON. STEWART L. WOODFORD. 

Mr. Presidoit and Fcllow-Tcnvnsjncn of Brooklyn: Your 
President kindly suggests that I owe the privilege of speaking 
to this toast not because I once held executive ofifice within 
the borders of this State but because I have been chosen by 
the New Englanders of our sister society across the river as the 
next President of the Society in the City of New York. 

Of course I felt no pride in that election, it was simply 
their tribute to our superior wit. They found that Brooklyn 
had beaten them on the day and they thought they would get 
a Brooklynite to restore the prestige of the New York Society; 
{cries of Oh ! Oh ! ) and proud of my home in the City of 
Churches, I propose to take the New England progress of 
Brooklyn across the river, and next year if they don't lay you 
out it will be the fault of Brooklyn, or at least of a Brooklyn 
man. {Laughter.) 

You drink to the State of New York. She was one of the 
last, you remember, to adopt the Federal Constitution, but 
having been last to adopt she was first and foremost to defend ; 
and in all the times of trial that have passed since the first 
President was inaugurated in Wall Street, New York City and 
State have stood in the very fore front, as defenders of the 
National idea. 

New York is conservative. We have not the radical ideas 
of New England. We have not the intense progress of the 
West, but we have that conservatism which will save the 
government from all probable danger. No thoughtful man 
can look into the future without seeing that there are dangers. 



46 

A government so tremendously extended in area is liable to 
danger from its physical conditions; a government embracing 
in its people such various nationalities and lineage, and a land 
welcoming the children of all lands under the sun, must, 
because of these facts, have conditions of manifest weakness. 
But in every struggle of the future, as in the past, whether the 
old idea of Slavery or the new idea of Mormonism, whether 
the greed of wealth, or the struggle of rival sections shall 
embarass and disturb, New York will remain the keystone of 
the arch, and resting upon that arch the Union will endure. 
In the faith of our New England ancestors we shall hold the 
Nation and we shall save it. {Applause.) 

The hour is late, and time is brief. Could one illustration 
be given of the duty and the work of New York in the future, 
we have it in the story of our recent past. Your thoughts go 
back, as mine, to that dark hour when murder entered the 
White House and our President fell. It was a son of 
New England, trained, educated and resident in New York, 
who in that hour of peril mastered the danger that menaced 
the Republic, and by an administration so wise and so con- 
servative, that it has won the respect and regard of all, took 
the New York idea of the conservation of the Republic, and 
has given us, out of danger, an era of peace, an era of pros- 
perity, and has assured the Republic of the future. {Great 
applause.) 

You look into that future, as do I. You remember that in 
the history of all lands under the sun there has seldom been 
more than one generation without war. You and I know 
that, living here, with an ocean washing the continent on 
either hand, no foreign fleet can long assail, no foreign 
army can come to march in its path of conquest. You and I 
know that the danger of the future must come from discordant 
elements within ourselves. In these troubles that shall come — 
for trouble and war come as the sparks fly upward — in the 
times of peril that shall come in the future, you and I believe 
that New England ideas and New York conservatism — the one 
giving the key-note to our march of progress across the conti- 
nent, the other giving us the sure strength that shall hold us 
in our way — will save the Nation, and will keep the Republic. 
{Applause.) 



47 
The Chairman. — Our next toast is, 

"The City of Brooklyn." 

Our goodly city is in good condition. Instead of her 
interests being subordinated to those of mere political parties, 
they are now held paramount, and all now agree that they shall 
be conducted, like other matters of property, " on business 
principles." Her present Mayor has boldly, squarely, firmly, 
honestly, honorably, and most ably, administered her govern- 
ment, and we may hope that his successors, of whatever party, 
will follow his example. 

I need not introduce to this assembly, the Hon. Seth Low. 

SPEECH OF MAYOR LOW. 

Mr. President, Sons of Nezv Englaiid, and Men of Brooklyn : 
You have witnessed already the disasters of those who are 
called to speak upon a sudden to an unknown text. You are 
now to witness the agony of a man who is called upon to 
speak to a well known text. The Mayor of a city in respond- 
ing for his municipality, sometimes gets to thinking that he 
has hardly the option of the small boy who said he knew only 
two tunes, one was "Yankee Doodle" and the other was not. 
He is confined by "Yankee Doodle." {Laughter.) Then there 
is another difficulty attached to a response on an occasion 
like this. After the Mayor has told the Friendly Sons of 
St. Patriek that if it were not for the Irish the city would 
go to sure ruin ; after he has told the Germans at the 
Saengerbund that they are the mainstay of the city ; after 
he has assured the Dutchmen at the St. Nicholas that in 
giving us the city motto they gave us the inspiration to 
progress ; and after he has told the Scotchmen that they are 
the essence of all that is best in the community, you can 
understand what a difficult of^ce a man has to fill when he 
finds himself before the sons of New England. {Laughter.) You 
can understand how largely I sympathize with Rufus Choate 
when, in attending a concert, he said to his daughter, who was 
by his side : " My dear, interpret to me the libretto, lest I 
dilate with the wrong emotion." {Lajighter.) If I should 



48 

make any such mistake, I beg you to accept from me the 
utterance of the poHtician from Texas — I do not know 
whether it was the immortal Flanagan or not — who, after 
addressing the audience, said to them : " Fellow-citizens, them 
are my sentiments, but if they don't suit you they can be 
changed." {Laughter^ Still, to change one's sentiments is not 
pleasant, and you can understand how much safer a Mayor 
feels when he speaks for his city as a whole. I want to speak 
to you just a few earnest words, not so much as sons of New 
England as men of Brooklyn, and part of the population who 
have found their homes here. Of Brooklyn herself I need say 
but little. In these days she is speaking for herself from Maine 
to California, and she will continue to speak with a voice that 
will command attention and respect and secure a following just 
so long as the spirit reigns in the hearts of the people who love 
her, that will keep a thousand and more young men, year 
after year, at work for weeks before election and on election 
day, simply to carry out successfully at the polls the principles 
in which they believe. Now, gentlemen, how are you going 
to make that principle, or any principle that is good, survive 
and continue in a great city of six hundred thousand people? 
I know of only one way. That is to make the city dear 
to the hearts of the people by every method within your 
power, and by working for the principle at all times as 
you can and as you will. But there must be something to 
love in the name of the city in which you live, if you expect 
men to work for her. Now, you glory in your New England 
ancestry. I do, although I was born in the City of Brooklyn. 
But I think that you, gentlemen, no less than I, have made 
your homes here, and I want you to think of this city, not as 
a place of residence, not simply as a collection of houses in 
which you dwell and from which you go to your work across 
the river or within our own limits ; but as your home. 
What do men do for their homes? They beautify them ; they 
make them attractive ; they are the places about which their 
affections cluster, and men will die for their homes when they 
will turn the coward shoulder to almost any other cause. I 
made a suggestion the other night when speaking to the sons 
of St. Nicholas and I will repeat it here. We have a Brooklyn 
Library with sixty or seventy thousand books upon the shelves, 



49 

but it is a subscription library. Tens of thousands would like 
to use those books, but they are available to only one or two 
thousand. We have a Historical Society of which we are 
justly proud, but it is a subscription historical society, and one 
or two thousand of our vast population are all who can avail 
themselves of its treasures. We have an Art Association in 
the very building next to us, but it is a subscription art asso- 
ciation I am glad these things are here. Not for anything 
would I detract from their value to our city by a single word. 
But I do appeal to you men who have made your homes here 
in Brooklyn to give to this city something of a public quality 
in its institutions, that shall make the city dear to its hundreds 
of thousands of inhabitants. If you could only make a cam- 
paign in a city like this, if you could go night after night to 
five or six large halls, three or four miles apart, and find in 
every hall a crowded audience, you would realize how short a 
distance a man's personal efforts reach, how small a circle must 
be any circle that is made up by subscriptions. I do hope you 
will lay this thought to your hearts and make it a part of your 
work. Let every one of us make it a part of our work — for I 
take the charge home to myself also — before we die or when 
we die as it may come to each of us, to do that for Brooklyn 
which shall make it a little richer as a city (the whole six 
hundred thousand people who make up Brooklyn) because we 
have our homes here. You go back to New England and you 
will find public libraries that have been started by sons of 
New England born there, who have made their money here in 
New York and Brooklyn. You will find all manner of things 
set up in the place of one's birth. But Avhat have you done 
for Brooklyn ? I ask you not to make this simply a place of 
residence, but let it be your home, and when you do, and just 
to that extent, we shall make permanent the spirit which has 
made the city of Brooklyn a name in the country second to no 
name at all. {Applause^ 

That is my message to-night on behalf of Brooklyn. I 
want to say one other thing only on behalf of the city, and 
that is to express a cordial welcome to the President of the 
United States. He can never come to us so often that he will 
wear out his welcome, but the oftener we see him the warmer 
shall be our greeting. {Applause^ 
4 



50 
The CJiairman. — Our closing toast is, 
"Our Sister Societies in the City of Brooklyn." 

Holland too, our ancient ally, is with us in her sons 
to-night. Their fathers gave our fathers shelter in times of 
trouble. Their children dwell in peace and good will together. 

We hope for the pipe of peace from the Hon. John W. 
Hunter, the President of the St. Nicholas Society. 

speech of HON. JOHN W. HUNTER. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen : It falls to my lot to thank 
you for the friendly courtesy extended to the St. Nicholas 
Society of this island. 

There is doidit and ignorance in all communities. There 
are some who even doubt the existence of St. Nicholas, and 
are ignorant of that veritable history of New Amsterdam 
from the beginning of the world to the end of the Dutch 
dynasty — and who are without a knowledge of the land upon 
which they dwell. 

If St. Nicholas or Santa Claus was not born in New 
Amsterdam, he was better known and understood in that 
locality than in almost any other. There was no child in all 
that settlement who did not know, and who did not expect, a 
yearly visit from him. He was firmly fixed in their minds and 
hearts — they believed in Christinas and Santa Clans —■:x.n<\ that 
descriptive poem of a visit from St. Nicholas, beginning : 

" 'Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house 
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse ; 
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care 
In the hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there." 

It is doubtful if Santa Claus was ever heard of in New 
England in that early period — for as the observance of Christ- 
mas had been prohibited by law and made a penal offence, of 
course St. Nicholas conld not go there at that time — but perhaps 
he has found his way there since. 

As the Hollanders came and settled here a little earlier than 
the Pilgrims, and as it has been admitted that without the 
twelve years probation of the Pilgrims in Holland disciplined 
and trained into practical knowledge of self-government, their 



51 

efforts at colonization would otherwise have been a failure, it 
must be confessed that the Pilgrim character was developed 
and matured by a residence in Holland. 

The settlements by the Dutch in New Amsterdam and in 
the valleys of the Hudson and of the Mohawk, and the firm 
and friendly intercourse established with the natives, were of 
the greatest consequence to their successors. So let us hope 
that the union of the Dutch and the Pilgrims may produce that 
Puritan purity of character so much admired throughout the 
world, and which the civilized world is not allowed to forget. 
{Applause.) 

The Chairman. — And now we welcome the eloquent, warm- 
hearted sons of St. Patrick, — always in trouble but neyer 
depressed, — earnest in war, — industrious in peace. Though 
darkness overshadows their native land, we trust that light, 
peace and prosperity will ere long everywhere prevail through- 
out its borders. 

I have great pleasure in introducing WlLLIAlM SULLIVAN, 
Esq., Vice-President of the St. Patrick Society. 

SPEECH OF WILLIAM SULLIVAN, ESQ. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the New England Soeiety : 
The good feeling which exists between your Society and the 
St. Patrick Society is natural enough when we consider the 
many points of resemblance between the characteristics of 
Irishmen and those of the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers. 
The Yankee is ubiquitous. He likes to migrate. He goes 
everywhere. And wherever he goes he is welcomed by an 
Irishman who has had the start of him. {Laughter^ When, 
however, it comes to the distribution of the offices, the Irishman 
discovers that the shrewdness and ingenuity and persuasive 
powers of the Yankee are too much for him. {Laughter) 
This can only be accounted for by the fact that Plymouth 
Rock is more inspiring than the Blarney Stone. {Laughter.) 
But it must be owned that in one respect at least, the Irishman 
is superior to his Yankee friend, for even within sight of 
Plymouth Rock the Irishman can beat the Yankee in increasing 
the number of voters. {LaugJiter.) The Irishman has one 



52 

great fault from which his Yankee neighbor is entirely free. 
When he does anything wrong everybody knows all about it. 
It would never do for him to become a Saint, for he would 
surely get found out. {Laughter.) I once listened to a sermon 
preached by Mr. Beecher, in the course of which, while touching 
on the errors and shortcomings of sinners, he exclaimed, 
"The Lord deliver us from the perfect man." So you see, 
gentlemen, that a Saint is not such a desirable fellow after 
all. {Laughter.) 

Religious toleration, consequent on the separation of Church 
and State, is, Mr. President, the logical sequence of the denial 
of the coercive authority of the State or of a State Church in 
matters of private conscience. And, therefore, we are indebted 
in part to the Pilgrim Fathers for religious liberty, the 
fundamental principles of which are expressed in the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, and also in the Constitution of 
every State in the Union. {Applause.) The ancestors of 
citizens of Irish extraction contributed also to the vindication 
and establishment of the great principle of liberty of conscience. 
And in its maintenance and perpetuity all citizens of whatever 
creed or descent, are alike interested. {Applause,) New 
England has taught us another fundamental principle of 
republican government, namely, the principle of Home Rule. 
The highest degree of perfection in town government has 
certainly been attained in New England. The Yankee is a 
" Home-Ruler " indeed, and so is the Irishman — in America as 
well as in Ireland. {Applause.) 

Well, gentlemen, we are all citizens of the Republic, and 
consequently we are all Americans bound together by the tie 
of common interest. {Applause.) 



The Chairman. — We will now close with the Doxology. 

The whole assemblage arose and sang. 

l^Air: Old Hundred.] 

Eternal are Thy mercies Lord, 

Eternal truth attends Thy word; 

Thy praise shall sound from shore to shore, 

Till suns shall rise and set no more. 



THE NEW ENGLAND MEETING HOUSE, 
By Noah Porter, D.D., LL.D., 

President of Yale College, 
[Read by request before the Society on the Evening of November 4, 1882.] 

The New England Meeting House is the symbol of much that 
is characteristic of the New England life. Its erection was the 
starting point of every one of the earlier New England communities, 
and it has been the rallying point for nearly everything which is 
distinctive in their history. Around it are gathered the most 
interesting associations which bind the New Englander to his early 
home. For these reasons it has been selected as the topic for a iew 
rambling thoughts which may be appropriate to the present occasion. 

A meeting house supposes an organized community or society of 
men who have occasion to assemble together at regular intervals of 
time for the transaction of public business or the discharge of public 
duties. Inasmuch as the New England settler regarded the meeting 
house as almost the prime necessity of his life, if not as essential to 
his existence, he must have recognized himself most distinctly as 
what Aristotle calls a ''political animal;' i. e., an animal made for 
society and holding definite relations to the community. I make 
this observation because the impression is very commonly entertained 
that the typical New Englander, with all his excellencies, has pushed 
individualism to an extreme; that in his vivid sensibility to his 
private interests and rights he has often been insensible to his public 
duties, and that in excessive responsibility for himself he became 
altogether too careless of his fellow men. Hence as is reasoned, the 
tenacity and general impracticability with which he is supposed to 
have exemplified the right of private judgment. Hence the perti- 
nacity with which he demanded a reason for every doctrine and 
measure, and the slowness with which he was convinced. Hence the 
silly stiffness with which, as some flippant critics insist, he rejected 
the rites and usages of what is called " the historic church " of 
England, and tried every existing practice and arrangement in 
church and state by some ideal standard of impossible perfection, 
either insisting with impracticable pertinacity upon useless reforms, 



64 

or separating himself from those organizations which did not 
conform in every particular to the supposed divine will. 

I do not deny that the New Englander carried many things to 
excess, as, for example, when he required a divine sanction for every 
religious observance, and even for every trivial action, going to such 
an extreme, as Coleridge humorously says, that he would not apply 
a corn plaster without a text of Scripture. I wish, however, to 
emphasize the fact, once for all, that he was emphatically what 
Bishop Hackett calls a public soul, that he was anything rather than 
an individual, separated from, or disbelieving in organized society, 
or unmindful of his responsibilities to his fellow men. The typical 
New Englander did not cross the ocean to enjoy an isolated 
independence or to exercise what was called soul-liberty in the 
separate indulgence of his imaginative whimsicalities or the inde- 
pendant service of a private religion. The few who came hither 
with such theories, or who adopted them after they landed, like 
Roger Williams and Sir Henry Vane, were strangers to the true 
New England spirit and the true New England theory. They did 
good service in their time, but it was not the special service to which 
the New Englander was called. They tempered the sharp grittiness 
of the original steel to an elastic flexibility, but they added nothing 
to its masterly power to build and defend. Whatever else Roger 
Williams accomplished, and all the rest of the " advanced men " of 
his time, they built few meeting houses, they organized few commu- 
nities, they provided few schools, they laid out few villages, they 
contributed very little to that remarkable organic and constructing 
power, and that indomitable public spirit which you can trace 
wherever the New England emigration has spread itself all over this 
land. The intolerance of the New Englander toward all sorts of 
intruders, the Quakers, the Baptists, and the Prelatists, grew out of 
his jealous zeal for the ideal perfection of the Christan common- 
wealth. It is explained by his devotion to what he conceived as the 
ideally perfect society, which he was called by God to build up in 
Massachusetts and Connecticut, leaving Rhode Island and the 
Providence Plantations to try their own experiments. 

But to return to the meeting house. It was needed for an 
organized society, and that society was a church, /. e., a community 
ordered after what was believed to be the one divine plan, definitely 
outlined and expressly sanctioned, as was supposed, by the highest 
authority. This society, in the eyes of the New Englander, should 
be small enough to meet in one place and perform all its functions 
within a single edifice, but in respect of authority was independent 
of all the world besides. Mark you, in respect of authority, but not 



55 



in respect of duty ; the duty to admonish and protest to other 
churches and the duty to receive admonitions and protests from 
them. While each of these churches was so tenacious of its 
theoretic isolation and its unshared autonomy as not even to 
recognize the minister of any other church as having any official 
relations to itself, it was held by its very essence and aim to be so 
closely confederated with every other church as through council and 
synod to be capable of a well-compacted organization, such as was 
needed in the early generations of the New England life. 

Out of the church grew the town ; or rather the town was evolved 
or developed along with the church. Whether church members, as 
in Massachusetts and New Haven, were at first the only voters, or 
whether, as in Connecticut, the town voted into its commonwealth, 
those men, and those only, who were fit to be freemen, it was all the 
same, as the church was the germ and the meeting house was the 
center of the self-goverened commonwealth, and became the scene 
of all those public transactions which should connect man with his 
fellow man, and with his God, in an organized and common life. 

It was of necessity, then, that the New Englander should provide 
a meeting house as soon as a church and a town were organized. 
The edifice was called a meeting house ; possibly at first because it 
was to be used indifferently as a place for both religious and civil 
transactions. To the early New Englander both were equally 
solemn and sacred. Then again, being performed by the same 
persons, and in an equally reverent spirit, there could be no thought 
of desecration or indecorum in the association of the two functions 
with the same place. The New Englander would not call this 
building a church. That, in his view, was a sacred and significant 
name, which should be applied only to one of the most exalted 
conceptions which had ever come to the mind of man. For any 
other use of the word there was, in his view, no warrant in the 
Scriptures. In the language of Richard Mather, " There is no just 
ground from scripture to apply such a trope as church to a house for 
a public assembly." — Ratio Discipline!;^ 5. 

The original structures were doubtless built of logs and thatched, 
with here and there a possible exception. None of those of the first 
age are now standing. We know the dimensions of one built in 
Dedham in 1638, viz., that it was 36 feet long, 20 feet wide and 12 
feet "in the stud." The oldest dwelling house in New England, 
and probably in the United States, is in Guilford, Conn. This was 
built in 1639, but it was built of stone, with very thick and solid 
walls, and is in excellent repair. There is a tradition that the first 
church in Guilford was also constructed of stone. This is the more 



56 

probable as the town abounds in ledges of more or less loosely-lying 
rock material. This, however, did not hold of the majority of the 
New England towns. The number of stone buildings of any kind 
was singularly small. Perhaps this is to be accounted for by the 
native tendency to work in wood, with the pen-knife as well as the 
axe. More soberly, the difficulty and expense of procuring lime and 
the want of skill in quarrying and fitting stone, with the greater labor 
involved, must be accepted as the propable explanation. In what 
may be called the second period of church building, the structures 
are known to have been covered with boards or planks, either sawn 
or rived. Their interiors were ceiled with boards, and often packed 
with clay or rude mortar. The structure was square, or nearly so ; 
the roof was pyramidal, and terminated in a belfry over the center, 
requiring the bell-ringer to stand in the middle of the edifice. We 
have an excellent example of a building of this type in the meeting 
house at Hingham, Mass., built in 1681, which is still in good 
preservation and in constant use. The original churches in New 
Haven and Milford were after this model, and were respectively 50 
and 40 feet square, each with a tower, so-called, in the center. 

A marked deviation from this type, with close adherence to its 
genetic features, is furnished in the meeting house erected for the 
First Church in Boston, the most expensive and elaborate up to its 
time, which was erected in 17 13, and survived till 1808. This was 
built of brick, rectangular in form, with sides nearly equal, furnished 
with a porch on the longest side, and crowned with a pyramidal 
spire from the middle of the roof-ridge. It was three stories in 
height, and probably had two galleries. 

In 1723 Christ Church, in the same city, was erected for the 
second Episcopal Society, and is still standing, except that its steeple 
was replaced after having been blown down. This is after a new 
pattern, in that the form deviates very decidedly from the square, 
and becomes rectangular. In this particular it follows the London 
churches, built after the gr'&at fire by well known architects. The 
form of these churches is not an accident, but in it the idea of the 
altar and chancel is recognized. These more sacred portions of an 
edifice would naturally be withdrawn to the end for comparative 
seclusion and ampler room. This edifice was elaborate and elegant, 
and is at the present day a model of its kind, as well as interesting 
for the most stirring associations. The first Episcopal church of 
Boston, the antecedent of the famous King's Chapel, was built for 
the Royal Governor between 1687 and '89, and though furnished 
with something which might be called a steeple, a tower and a 
chancel, and so far following the ecclesiastical type, was ugly enough 



57 

to match any of the ugliest churches of the Puritans, and effectually 
to redeem the Puritan principles and tastes from any special respons- 
ibility for the defective architecture of the times. This building was 
succeeded in 1749 by the well known King's Chapel, which still 
survives, and is at once admirable for its architectural interest and 
memorable for its theological and ecclesiastical history. It is to be 
regretted that the steeple which was to stand upon its solid tower 
was never completed. Its peristyle was not added till 1790. Long 
may it stand, with Christ Church and the Old South, in its simple 
and massive dignity, tempered with reverend grace. 

But the most important advance in the history, or rather in the 
evolution, of the New England meeting house was the erection of 
the Old South Church in Boston in 1729-30. I would not dare to 
affirm that this was the first of its kind, but it certainly may be 
taken as the typical model of the New England meeting house for 
nearly a century. It has a spire upon a tower rising from the 
ground, with a porch at tlie opposite end, and the pulpit upon the 
longest side. This church was furnished with two galleries, as was 
true of a few other churches of the last century, e. g., those in 
Milford and Guilford, in Connecticut, these being very populous 
towns, and others in Massachusetts. The Old South was finished in 
1730. There are several churches besides this which still survive 
which are substantially like it, though finished with different degrees 
of elegance and expensiveness. I should conjecture that this church 
set the fashion of the New England meeting house for nearly a 
century, during the period when New England began to be conscious 
of an independent and an individual life. Very many have, within 
the writer's recollection, given way to those of more modern type. 
Among the best of those which survive are the meeting houses in 
Wethersfield and Farmin2:ton, Conn., -the first of which was com- 
menced in 1760 and the second in 177 1. The first is 80 feet by 52, 
and the second is 75 by 50, exclusive of porch at one end and steeple 
at the other. With the present century and the advance of wealth 
and culture which followed our establishment as an independent 
nation, the New England meeting house assumed another form, 
conforming more nearly to the churchly style of London architecture. 
Of this we have admirable specimens in Park street church, Boston, 
in the two edifices on the New Haven green, and those in Guilford, 
Springfield, and many others. A fine example in Northampton, 
Mass., was unfortunately destroyed by fire a few years since. The 
old brick in New York, near the Park, and the new brick on the 
Fifth avenue, are excellent examples of this style, which displaced 



58 

every other and manfully kept its hold till the Gothic and Romanic, 
in various types and travesties of beauty and ugliness, in wood and 
stone, very nearly thrust it aside. 

The first steeple in Connecticut was erected in Guilford in 1726, 
and attached to the meeting house previously built in 17 12, which 
was 68 feet long and 46 feet wide. It was expressly voted that 
" the belfry and spire of the meeting house shall be built in the 
fashion and proportion of the church at Newport, Rhode Island." 
The church referred to is doubtless Trinity Church, which is still 
standing, and retains the organ given to it by Bishop Berkeley 
about 1730. 

Having followed the growth, or, in modern phrase, the evolution 
of the New England meeting house in its form without and within, 
we should give a word to its interior. This was originally bare and 
unattractive enough. Building stuff in the rough was abundant, but 
boards that were sawn were not easily procured. Bricks were scarce 
and expensive, and lime for plastering must have come from remote 
situations, or from shell-fish out of the sea. Many of the chimneys 
of the dwelling houses of the third and fourth generations were of 
rough stone, laid up chieOy in clay, and of such not a few are 
standing in the oldest dwellings to this day. Pews were not provided 
at first, even for the Governor or his deputy, although their seats of 
honor were properly dignified by position and formal designation. 
Now and then, in the earlier part of the second century, a vote 
authorizes some worshipful gentleman or his lady, to construct a pew 
at his or her expense. It was a great step in luxury and dignity 
which made high and square pews universal, and a great step for 
convenience and edification when they were finally abandoned. It 
deserves to be recorded also that, in Massachusetts very generally, 
and the parts of other New England States which were affiliated 
with Massachusetts, the pews were made more airy and elegant by 
open panels, variously ornamented with open work. Through these 
openings the younger worshipers could communicate with one 
another during the long sermons. They were also provided with 
moveable seats, which were turned up for the convenience of the 
worshipers who sought support as they reverently stood during the 
long prayer, the conclusion of which was noisily signalized by a 
most irreverent din, which was more or less aggravated by the 
additional emphasis with which the boys would contrive to express 
their Avien. 

The meeting house of New England was never lighted, except 
by the sun, until singing schools made it necessary to introduce 
candles and rude chandeliers. Night meetings in the meeting house 



59 

were considered highly indecorous and questionable even by the 
most zealous. No firing was provided for. Stoves were utterly 
unknown, and open fireplaces were not to be thought of. Even the 
rude and dangerous devices, which afterward were matured into the 
not uncomfortable foot-stoves, were at first unknown. The New 
England meeting house was never warmed by artificial heat till from 
1810 to 1820. Of a cold winter morning the breath of the worshipers 
not unfrequently would seem like smoke from a hundred furnaces as 
it came in contact with the frosty atmosphere. The walls which 
had been almost congealed into ice by the fierce northwesters of the 
preceding week, would strike a chill of death into the frame of many 
of the congregation. That they should come to such a place as 
this, on a snowy morning, plowing through unswept walks, and 
plunging through fearful drifts — man, woman, and child — and sit 
with half frozen feet under long discourses on knotty doctrines, 
makes us shiver as we think of it, and say from the heart, " herein 
is the patience of the saints." And yet the writer's memory can 
distinctly recall the observation and experience of scenes like these. 
The experience was not so cruel as it might seem. Manifold 
devices against the cold were provided. Some that are now deemed 
indispensable were not needed. The free-handed and open-hearted 
hospitality of the houses near the meeting house was freely proffered 
and as readily accei)ted. Enormous kitchen fires were expressly 
replenished for Sunday uses, before which scores of worshipers, from 
a distance, warmed their persons and ate their luncheons, and at 
which they replenished their foot-stoves. The merchant, the inn- 
keeper, the squire, the doctor, the retired money-lender, the wealthy 
widow or Lady Bountiful who lived near the meeting house, all 
esteemed it their duty and their pleasure to manifest this reasonable 
hospitality. Slight and natural as it was, it helped to bind and hold 
together the little community by the ties of common sympathy. At 
summer noons the farmers would gather in knots together on the 
sunny or shady side of the hospitable old meeting house, and the 
women would huddle into knots within the circle of some friendly 
pew, and tell the news of neighbors and relatives far and near, 
sometimes, but not always, observing the rigid ethics concerning 
Sabbatic observance which were taught from the pulpit, but always 
decent and reverent in voice and demeanor. To provide against all 
contingencies, adjoining neighbors from a distance would sometimes 
erect a plain structure upon the meeting house green — a Sabbath-day 
house, so called — of one or two apartments, with ample fire-places, 
which relieved somewhat the draft upon the often overburdened 



* 60 

hospitality of those who dwelt under the droppings of the sanctuary. 
These structures have nearly all disappeared with the occasion which 
brought them into being. Now and then the remains of one are 
identified by some village antiquary, as applied to some baser use — 
of stable or granary. 

In speaking of the meeting house as a material structure, we 
have anticipated its relation to the social organization in which it 
held the most prominent place. 

We notice, first, that the meeting house was the central building 
in the village and the town. To this, as the most important edifice, 
was assigned the most conspicuous and honorable situation within or 
fronting the meeting house green, which was the general gathering 
place for military musters and every other out-door assemblage of 
the parish or town. The post office and village inn were always 
near it, with the stocks and the whipping post ; often one or two of 
the most important shops — the office for the lawyer and doctor, one 
or more. Sometimes several streets radiated out from this as the 
centre. If there was one long and rambling street, the meeting 
house was as near as possible to the centre of the population. If the 
street were very long and the houses in consequence, at one end of 
it, increased out of natural proportions, questions would sometimes 
arise as to the proper site for the next structure. Now and then a 
contest between the north and south end or east and west side arose, 
and at last two meeting houses in place of one, and the once peaceful 
village would be sundered into two factions, and the deserted old 
green would remain the melancholy memorial and witness of 
departed greatness or intestine strife. But this occurred in later 
times, and only now and then. Usually the meeting house retained 
its original central glory from the days of the fathers. This glory 
was by no means insignificant. The place of the meeting house 
being fixed, a village was certain to grow up beneath its sheltering 
and inspiring life. It is an important factor in the growth and devel- 
opment of New England history, that the mother settlements, more or 
fewer, of the first century and those which gave character to all the 
rest, were in large villages, more or less compact, with a shaded 
street, ample home lots, well filled barns, and all the conveniences of 
mill and mechanics' and merchants' shops ready to their hand. 
These village communities, with their outlying farm- and wood-land, 
have been no unimportant feature of the New England life, and 
explain many of the marked pecularities of its religious and educa- 
tional life, of its intelligence and inventive skill, of its enterprise, its 
thrift, its energetic public spirit, and its emigrating success. This 
village life was at first almost a necessity. The fear of the savage 



61 

compelled the original community to build their houses in compact 
neighborhoods. The neighborhood of some lovely stream, with its 
natural meadow alluvials and its adjacent slopes of pasturage and 
tilth, would invite to comfortable vicinage, especially as these features 
were strikingly contrasted with the gloomy forest, which stretched 
into the unknown. Nearness to the meeting house in days when 
horses and cattle were few, and vehicles almost unknown, was no 
insignificant circumstance to the early New Englander who had 
crossed the ocean that he might construct and enjoy a church which 
his conscience accepted and approved. The loneliness suggested 
by long stretches of intervening forest, the well-grounded fears 
during two or three generations of savage treachery or surprises, 
the costly wars which wasted the strength and cut short the lives of 
a sparse population, and all the attendants of a dependent and 
depressed colonial condition, compelled to an intense social life 
within these little communities, each of which was shut up within 
itself, with rarely or never a newspaper, with scarcely a post office for 
the first century or more, and with rarely a journey for wife or child, 
and never for a man, unless it were upon a voyage, a hunting expe- 
dition, or a campaign. 

For the reasons already given, the first meeting houses and the 
original villages were in the open and sunny valleys, and by quiet and 
brimming streams. Later, as the forests were invaded and their sav- 
age wildness was subdued, the new meeting houses and the villages 
which were grouped about them were placed upon the hills, for the 
obvious reason that the soil upon the summits was drier and more 
healthful. Perhaps, also, these settlers desired to live in sight of one 
another, and hold a kind of social communion as the rising or setting 
sun would flash its signals of greeting from the windows of one meet- 
ing house to those of another. So it has seemed to me, as in the hill 
country of Massachusetts and Connecticut, I have counted ten or 
twelve steeples each upon its crested summit, and thought on a 
Sunday of the communion of the saints. Now and then, as the 
valley beneath was subsequently drained and became more accessible 
and attractive, the hill-top was deserted till nothing was left of the 
original village, except a few half choked wells and hardly distin- 
guishable cellars. Neither house nor meeting house can be traced, 
and all that survives is the name Toivn Hill to perpetuate the pristine 
glories of the original site. Later still, as the soil has been washed 
into the valleys from the once fertile hill-sides, much of the popula- 
tion has been attracted into the same valleys and along the wild and 
rushing streams. Countless villages and not a few wealthy cities 
have risen up near where was only a narrow gorge or a rushing 



62 

waterfall. In such cases the old meeting house sits solitary upon the 
lonely hill-top, and as the fierce northwester sweeps around its ample 
and alas, too often, thinly occupied spaces, it sighs the requiem of 
its departed honors, as it recalls the gay and joyous life which once 
crowded its well filled pews, and the sober and venerable age which 
gave dignity and strength to the solid commonwealth which here 
kept the Sabbath of its reverent and united worship. 

The village life of which the original meeting house was the 
centre and the symbol, was not merely the product of circumstances; 
it was the outgrowth of the New Englander's theory of life. The 
commanding principle of his plantation as well of his individual life 
was this, " Man liveth not by bread alone, but by every word which 
proceedeth out of the mouth of God." The New Englander was 
thrifty and keen and patient and industrious. He was forecasting 
and enterprising by land and by sea, but his aims for his individual 
and social life proposed the highest and the best, for the individual 
and the commonwealth. As a consequence, the church, the spiritual 
company of elect and believing souls was made the life-giving 
nucleus of every plantation, and the meeting house became its 
sanctuary and symbol. For this reason, among others, the planters 
themselves naturally settled in villages hard by the house of God. 
There is extant in the fortieth volume of the Massachusetts Histori- 
cal Collection, p. 274, a paper by an anonymous author, setting forth 
in detail the ideal of a New England plantation. It was written in 
1635, and apparently suggested by the fear lest an ordinance should 
be repealed which had ofliered a bounty for the destruction of wolves. 
With this decidedly earthly starting point, the writer expounds his 
ideal of a plantation, which should provide for a compact village life 
with its social advantages, — the village to be bordered by outlying 
farms, the houses of the remoter plantations to be gathered in little 
hamlets until the time when the remoter forests should be subdued, 
in which wolves and Indians then had their hiding places. The 
wolves that howled by night for generations in their dark forests 
were not feared so greatly nor guarded against so carefully as the 
spiritual wolves, against which the meeting house and the fellowship 
of the saints were the most efficient securities. 

But we have almost forgotten our meeting house in the village 
and the village life which was to grow up around it. The meeting 
house in New England invariably supposed an organized church — 
indeed no New England plantation could be conceived as existing 
without this divinely appointed and life-giving center of life. The 
church was a community of elect souls who accepted, or if you 
please elected, one another as sympathizing in a common Christian 



63 

faith and hope and joy, and as finding in one another the evidence 
that they had been called of God. We may call this estimate bigotry 
if we choose, or we may name it spirtual pride. We may find 
reasonable objection to the severity of the tests of doctrine and the 
no less rigid standards of feeling and of living which its members 
applied to one another, but we cannot doubt that in their aims and 
hopes they deserve to be numbered as among " the few 

Who by due steps aspire 
To lay their just hands upon that golden key 
That opes the palace of eternity." 

Few scenes which have been transacted upon the earth are better 
fitted to command our respect or move our sympathy than the 
gathering of a score or two of these earlier settlers in a half finished 
log cabin to recount to one another their common faith and heavenly 
aspirations and thus to accept one another in the name of their 
Master as members of the family whose names were written in 
Heaven. Few events are more singular in the beginnings of 
commonwealths than the acceptance by the civil society of the 
authority of the fittest to rule over it by a divine right. It is to be 
observed that in the transaction in which these Christian believers 
became a Christian church there was at first no written creed. It 
would be erroneous to infer from this circumstance that they had no 
positive and definite views of Christian truth or that these views 
were not maintained and transmitted from one generation to another. 
It is, however, of importance to notice that whatever this creed 
might be, whether long or short, whether more or less permanent or 
temporary, whether divine or human in part or in whole, it was held 
as a living and vital truth by the living men and women who 
accepted it. To them it was no dead formula but as the expression 
of living and vital principles concerning God to man, concerning 
the present and the future life. Every utterance in it was attested 
by their own living faith. It embodied the energy of their spiritual 
life, the most which they cared for and hoped and feared for the 
present and the future. 

The church being organized, it forthwith proceeded to elect its 
minister, one who was commended to their consciences and hearts 
by holding their common faith and was animated by common 
sympathies with themselves. He was accepted as their teacher and 
pastor for life. And when the log-built meeting house was completed 
and the little community with its pastor had taken possession of it, 
the unhewn timbers and the hard benches and the rustic roof glowed 
with a visible splendor, as when the ark of the covenant was borne 
in state into the temple of Solomon and consecrated it as the 



64 

dwelling place of the Living God. It was not till meeting house and 
minister were provided that the community was prepared to meet the 
duties and enterprises of their common life. In their quaint language 
a golden candlestick was set up, as was fondly hoped never to be 
removed, and the Lord Christ was seen to be present by its side. 
But before the meeting house was occupied it must be " seated " as 
the phrase went. That is, the places for occupation must be assigned 
to each member of the community. Subsequently this seating was 
by families. In the first meeting house in New Haven the sexes 
were separated and the places of each person are still on record 
marking the rank and dignity of every one. A little more than a 
hundred years since, at the completion of a large and stately meeting 
house, four men were appointed as a "Seating Committee" and 
directed to perform the duty of their office "by their best discretion." 
The first committee having failed to give satisfaction a second was 
appointed and ordered in discharging their function "to have respect 
to age, office, and estate, so far as it tendeth to make a man respect- 
able, and to everything else which hath the same tendency." A 
few years afterward in the same community a large committee 
was appointed "to dignify the meeting house," i. e.^ to determine 
with exactness the relative dignity of the seats, this having become 
necessary probably by the introduction of square pews instead of 
the long seats of earlier times and the consequent disturbance of the 
wonted associations of rank as indicated by place. To every house- 
hold and every man was assigned his place, and every household and 
every man was expected to be in his place. Equality before the law 
and in the presence of God was distinctly recognized by the New 
Englanders, but equality in place and station and honor in Church 
and State was in their view totally unchristian and they enforced 
their ideas most emphatically in the meeting house where they 
seemed to come the nearest to God. Uncouth as were their manners, 
and harsh their speech, the spirit of courtesy and reverence animated 
their precise and decorous life. In the first generations in Massa- 
chusetts and Connecticut attendance on public worship was enforced 
by law. So was it in Virginia before either Massachusetts or 
Connecticut were settled. By the same rule after which in these 
days parents are compelled to send their children regularly to the 
school house they were required to come with them to the meeting 
house on the Lord's day. On the same principle, till 1818 in 
Connecticut and till some years afterward in Massachusetts, every 
citizen was compelled to support some religious organization by a 
tax on his estate. This was done in no spirit of religious tyranny 
but on definite grounds of public policy. What it cost in toil and 



65 

fear to be present at the meeting house in the first generations no 
one of us can adequately imagine. But the toil and fear and 
privation were cheerfully encountered from a sense of duty to God. 
The traditions are well nigh incredible and yet are well accredited 
of the long distances by rough ways and through forests which men 
and women would travel in order to fulfill what was esteemed the 
great duty of the week. 

Thus was formed the excellent habit which has done so much for 
the New England people of regular attendance at religious worship 
with every Lord's day. What was at first recognized as a religious 
duty, subsequently became also a social necessity and pleasure. So 
soon as the original villages began to be outgrown and outlying farms 
of generous size were brought into culture several miles from the 
central village, it was a thing of course that "young men and 
maidens, old men and children " should have manifold reasons, 
when Sunday morning came, besides those of conscience for re- 
sponding to the call, " Let us go up to the house of the Lord." It is 
not easy to conceive of a more inspiriting scene than the gathering 
of a country congregation from a wide-spread township on a pleasant 
Sunday morning. The vehicles are of every variety from the 
pretentious landeau down to the most dilapidated of single wagons 
with a horse to match it. The families vary in size and quality from 
eight or twelve of sturdy parents and buxom daughters with three or 
four sons on half broken colts behind, down to a pair composed of a 
staid old bachelor with his prim sister in their tidy vehicle with a 
circumspect and comely steed — all driving and riding at every 
conceivable pace, but all fresh with health and exhilarated by the 
morning drive. As they approach the meeting house they slacken 
their pace, their manner becomes more grave and circumspect, and 
they politely wait for one another as they approach the landing 
places to disembark their freight. During the protracted services 
including the nooning, the horses must now and then become restive. 
When the squealing, and kicking, and biting became too indecorous 
to be endured, two or three young men of the horse-taming sort 
would quietly slip out and bring the irreverential beasts to the 
requisite Sabbath sobriety. But the interruption would sometimes 
make a serious break in the minister's wiredrawn argument. After 
the second service is over all is bustle again. The horses are scarcely 
more impatient than their drivers — one vehicle after another receives 
its freight and is off, the colts and unduly excited horses for a few 
moments bringing the passengers into mortal terror. But after a few 
brief demonstrations the homeward bound vehicles fall into line— 
the village street is one long cavalcade and in a few minutes all is 
5 



66 

quiet and lonely. The foot passengers discuss the sermon and many 
things besides. Those in the vehicles distribute the news they have 
gathered and recall the sermon, it is to be hoped, during the week, 
for they refer to it often when the minister calls on his rounds. 

The annual Thanksgiving festival was the one occasion when 
the meeting house and its worshipers could be said positively to 
relax from the traditonal New England severity and to put on a 
genial and joyful aspect. In the old times, I have been told by those 
who knew, that the large brick oven was carefully heated and the 
chicken and other pies were consigned to its faithful ministrations, 
while the entire family repaired to the meeting house in full faith 
that the dinner would be done to a nicety against their return. In 
later and somewhat more degenerate days the mother of the house- 
hold was conspicuously absent with the consent of the congregation, 
especially if she had a special reputation for the delicious flavor of 
her baked meats and roasts, and the irresistible composition of her 
pies. In the better days the congregation was large, being pleasantly 
reinforced by various representatives, from far and near, with wife 
or husband and children. The Thanksgiving anthem was given 
with excited zeal and listened to with complacent admiration or 
critical discrimination. The long prayer was offered with a more 
copious amplitude and freedom than was common and a more 
glowing fervor. The sympathy of the congregation could hardly be 
restrained as they noticed some bereaved household and thought of 
the beloved youth or parent who had gone. The sermon was more 
glowing and rhetorical than the discourse of ordinary Sundays, and 
was listened to with more marked attention. Possibly some subject 
of local interest or enterprise was proposed or discussed, which 
might involve an expenditure of money or the venture of new 
enterprise. The blessings of the year, in the early and latter 
harvests, were gratefully recounted with a recognition of the blessings 
in disguise of a frost and a drought. The goodness of God was at 
least one day in the year definitely recognized in the old meeting 
house, and in a manner and with a fervor which the most exacting 
Arminian or the most tenacious Liberal could require. The duty of 
the rich and the prosperous to the poor and the straitened was 
plainly enforced by the preacher, and it was generously fulfilled by 
his hearers. 

The rigorous Fast day — of all days the most odious and inexplic- 
able to the youthful New Englander — was redeemed by nothing 
except the enlarged freedom and secularity of speech which was 
allowed to the minister and expected by his hearers. This was the 
one day on which he was expected to free his mind in respect to the 



67 

sins of politicians, especially after the accession of Thomas Jefferson. 
The positiveness with which this duty was discharged, the point and 
directness with which the anti-New England policy was discussed, 
gave a piquancy and interest to the Fast day services, which the 
solemnity of the day could not suppress. Not infrequently it might 
happen that the zeal of the preacher would altogether outrun his 
discretion and an explosive reaction would follow in the form of a 
certificate from the church of "the standing order " and a formal 
adhesion to whatever sectarian body happened to be most promising 
for political advancement. To a young minister the perils of Fast 
day were sometimes very serious, and the older and wiser men of 
the church took a long breath when they were fairly passed, and 
they felt that the church had taken no detriment. 

These scenes remind me that the decorum and dignity which in 
theory were exacted in the New England meeting house were not 
always maintained. Those who complain of the austerity of the 
New England ways in the early days, and the fearful stiffness of the 
manners of young and old, and bestow an abundance of sympathy 
upon the young Puritans for the unnatural constraint to which they 
were subjected in the meeting house may spare their compassion. 
There was a lustiness of youth in that young blood, which could not 
and would not be controlled. It was not always, perhaps not usually, 
wicked, it was simply irrepressible. It often broke out in the meet- 
ing house, and occasioned infinite trouble to the elders. Even the 
fear of the tithingman could not always avail. The anticipated 
reproof of father and mother, the pointed reprimand of the minister 
from the pulpit were all in vain. The galleries swarmed with youth- 
ful life. The inmates were practically relegated to this court of the 
Gentiles, as hopeless subjects of their natural impulses, till the grace 
of God should bring them to a better mind, and it is not surprising 
that under this theory there should now and then occur some 
alarming outbreak which illustrated and proved afresh the doctrine 
of total depravity. 

But the mention of this doctrine suggests ground on which I 
may not freely tread. And yet I would fain say a word concerning 
the theological system which was taught in the old meeting house 
first and later, and of the controversies which subsequently divided 
its churches and agitated its communities ; of the sects which have 
rent our mother church and in many cases subdivided its small 
parishes into weakling and jealous knots of religious partizans. 
However offensive to my reason or my taste may seem some of the 
scholastic and outworn phrases in which the changeless and eternal 
verities of the Christian faith were formulated, however offensive to 



68 

my judgment and even to my conscience may seem some of the 
conclusions which were enforced, however trivial and unimportant 
may seem many of the positions on which the New England theolo- 
gians insisted as vital and on which the dissenters from the mother 
church of New England assailed it so frequently and rent it so sadly, 
I pass by them all and forget them altogether when I stand in an old 
New England meeting house, which has remained for a century, and 
upon the site of which five or seven or eight generations have 
assembled in rain and sunshine, in peace and war, in health and in 
pestilence, to worship the living God in the name of the Lord Jesus 
Christ, in whom all Christian believers are one in life, and death, and 
immortality. I find it not difficult to distinguish the great facts and 
truths of the Christian system with their practical relations from the 
metaphysical distinctions which they are supposed to involve, and 
the hard conclusions to which a narrow logic may seem inexorably 
to lead. The faith in which churches and pastors have in fact stood 
together when they have seemed to stand farthest apart, the faith 
which has inspired their common prayers and tuned their praises and 
strengthened their patience in great sorrows and wrought out the 
blessed fruits of the Christian life and made their homes happy, is to 
me the same one substantial faith in which all Christians live and die. 
Now and then I find an old meeting house which has symbolized 
this one faith and hallowed and inspired its worship for an entire 
New England town for a century or more of New England's life, and 
when I ask what better have a half dozen other places of worship 
done which divide the zeal of the neighboring community, I find no 
reason to withdraw my blessing from the old meeting house that has 
witnessed the worship of an undivided community because of the 
seeming severity of its creed. As I study the ancient creeds in the 
light of ancient days, and amid the hallowed associations of the 
house in which my father and my father's father worshiped, I dare 
not say for I do not believe, that these creeds and theologies, as held 
by them, either dishonored God, or weakened His authority, or 
obscured His love, or demoralized the consciences of the generations 
which preached or believed them. 

I grant that in the strict construction of terms and propositions, 
by the light of a more exact and consistent philosophy, the ancient 
theology may seem to some minds to be a compact and pitiless system 
of fatalism, in its finished structure, its dovetailed definitions and its 
inexorable conclusions. I grant that, unillumined by faith in a 
morally perfect God, any severely reasoned system that begins with 
God's purposes and power must necessarily cast long and gloomy 
shadows over human life and darker still over the life that is beyond. 



69 

But it is no more than just to remember that to the mind of the New 
Englander of other generations this logical structure was projected 
against the background of an unshaken confidence in the living and 
loving God, and that from this glowing presence the radiance was so 
bright and penetrating as to turn what would otherwise have been a 
dark and dismal tomb into a temple filled with the divine glory. 

They who would exchange what they call the cruel fatalism o 
the Christian theology for the utterly inhuman evolutionism of the 
Agnostic system, literally know not what they affirm in more senses 
than they profess. If in order to keep up with the fashion of the 
times, I must profess myself a believer in Evolutionism of some sort, 
I am free to confess that I prefer to accept the Evolutionism of a 
purpose which is impelled by God's personal goodness and guided 
by His personal intelligence than the Evolutionism wliich springs 
out of Chaos and ends in Old Night. 

It should never be forgotten that the New England preachers 
have not been accustomed to hold their theology as a traditional 
form, but have been taught to revise and defend it, under any new 
light which might break forth from God's Holy Word without, or 
any new light which might spring up from the conscience within. 
If they have been in any sense traditional theologians their traditions 
have all been in the direction of free and independent thinking. 
The great preachers and theologians of New England have used the 
pulpit to demonstrate and enforce Christian truth by fresh inquiries 
concerning human duty and human sinfulness in tlie light of the 
human conscience. The meeting house of New England has been 
characteristically a place where the conscience has been appealed to, 
to own that God is just, and man is sinful and therefore needs the 
pardon and help which Christ alone can bring. 

If to their ethical reasonings and spiritual utterances there often 
were superadded theological theories which are now abandoned, and 
interpretations of the Scriptures which have since been outgrown, 
though these might obscure they could not hide, though they might 
overgrow they could not strangle those exhibitions of the living God 
on the one hand and those searching rules and tests of the Christian 
life on the other, which have made the New England pulpit a place 
of uncomputed moral power, and the New England meeting house a 
living spring of living truths in Christian theology. 

But whatever may be thought of the theology of the sermons 
which were preached in the New England meeting houses it will not 
be questioned that they educated the people, and for the first 
century were their most efficient instructors. The schools were 
irregular and insufficient. There were no newspapers, or next to 



70 

none. The books were few and chiefly books of devotion and 
controversy. Physical science was almost unknown. There were 
scarcely any lawyers, and medicine as a profession was scantily and 
feebly represented. The minister was the oracle upon almost every 
subject. He was generally a man of classical education, a good 
Latin scholar, tolerable in Greek and Hebrew, with a fair knowledge 
of geometry and algebra, and some acquaintance with physics and 
astronomy. But he studied the Bible, and his theology and ethics 
involved reflection on those themes which never grow old, of man's 
duty and destiny, of God and His kingdom. The preaching earnestly 
and affectionately applied these truths for the guidance of the life in 
those duties which are acknowledged by all men to be binding, and 
to those aspirations and charities which are always as bright and 
sweet as the sunlight. The sermon and catechism implied earnest 
thinking on the part of adults and some training in letters on the 
part of children. There was nothing the New England minister so 
much deplored as ignorance and barbarism in his flock. He never 
discouraged study or the use of books, or the foundation of schools 
and colleges. He was foremost in the foundation of libraries, many 
of which are nearly a century old, and in stimulating culture of every 
description. For all these reasons every meeting house was of 
necessity a centre of culture, a school of good manners, a training 
place for decorum, an enforcement of order, in the name of the 
living God and in the interests of the kingdom of Christ. 

The worship might perhaps seem rude to us, and the sermons 
unfinished and uncouth, and the culture and education from both to 
have been of a negative value. We should remember as we drag 
through the old sermons, and the books of ghostly counsel, and the 
poetry of doubtful inspiration, that the first preachers of New 
England were two generations and more earlier than Locke, three 
before Addison, and five before Johnson. We should not forget that 
Milton and Sir Henry Vane, their contemporaries, were in prose 
diction often pedantic and unfinished, though usually eloquent and 
strong. Of one thing we may be assured, that had it not been for 
the meeting house and the ministry of its first century. New England 
would have sunk into barbarism, and neither schoolmaster nor school 
would have flourished in New England, and if not there, surely 
nowhere in this land. 

We ought not to forget that very early, under the inspiration of 
the ministry and under the very shadow of the meeting house, school 
houses were erected for all the children of the parish and the town, 
and that like the gospel, education was enforced upon all the 
children, and all the parents were taxed to pay for it; and the 



71 

neglect of such advantages was denounced from the pulpit as a sin 
against the commonwealth and against God. As the fruit of this 
religious inspiration and religious sanction in New England the 
public school system has taken its strong hold of the people of this 
country. The great number of select schools or academies which 
have from time to time come into being, some of which have become 
permanent and endowed, and some transformed into colleges and 
seminaries, is explained by the constant inculcation by the minister 
of the Christian duty of sustaining the higher education. The 
founders of all the New England Colleges have been conspicuously 
clergymen, and in hundreds of New England meeting houses have 
been heard the admonitions and teachings which have sent millions 
of dollars into the treasuries of our higher seminaries of Christian 
learning. From the earliest days till now the minister was usually 
one of the authorized school visitors in the smaller towns, and not a 
few clergymen still serve in this capacity. Nor should we forget 
those annual exhibitions of the schools of the town, which of 
necessity and of love were held in the meeting house, when the first 
classes of the smaller districts would vie with one another, and 
matches in reading, and spelling, and arithmetic, and grammar, were 
hallowed by the sanctuary and blessed by the minister, while the 
entire community looked on with sympathizing favor. Not infre- 
quently dramatic exhibitions have taken posession of the house of 
worship in the interests of the village academy, and many of the 
devices and arrangements of the theatre have been displayed in a 
Puritan meeting house, which in its earlier life had never been 
desecrated by a night meeting. When Sunday schools were first 
introduced, about sixty years ago, a few of the adherents of the old 
ways shook their heads in distrust, but very soon the great doors of 
the oldest meeting houses were thrown open for their heartiest 
welcome, till the Sunday school has now well nigh usurped the 
functions of the minister, or the minister has in some cases ceased 
to teach with that authority and earnestness which in the olden days 
he never failed to assert for his office and for himself. 

I ought not to omit the culture of sacred song as a most import- 
ant accessory of public worship and incidentally a means of social 
and individual refinement. In the first generations of New England 
the poetry and singing were rude enough and very little of culture 
could come of either. Two or three uncouth versions of the Psalms 
were all the sacred melodies which the worshipers knew or used in 
public or private worship. And yet these are scarcely more unmelo- 
dious than the version of Rouse which has till very recently been 
chiefly relied upon in the Kirk of Scotland and in some of the many 



n 

secessions from that body is still pertinaciously retained as the only 
suitable rendering of the Royal Psalmist's words. Some five or six 
tunes were all that were used by any congregation. The New 
Englander was too enterprising and liberal to linger in this barbaric 
twihght, and in this particular is indicated the striking contrast 
betw° en him and the typical Scotchman. Early in the last century 
the "new way" of singing was introduced, presumably by the new 
version of Dr. Watts with the new tunes. The novelties which the 
new melodies demanded occasioned serious divisions among the 
people, and now and then some scandalous scenes in the meeting 
house, each man following his conscience after a very unedifying 
fashion. But in the end the new way prevailed— as it always must, 
provided the new represents the true. In some congregations the 
advocates of the old way were permitted to leave the assembly before 
the last singing in the afternoon, which followed the new fashion. 
The commotion made by the departing malcontents as they tramped 
along the aisles and down the gallery stairs, was long remembered as 
an empathetic example of how vigorous can be the protests of an 
exasperated conscience. These controversies continued for nearly 
a half century, till finally Dr. Watts' (the new way of singing), and 
separate choirs triumphed, and with these came in that cultivation of 
sacred music, which for nearly a century at least has made the New 
En'^land meeting house so efficient an incitement to the musical 
culture and incidentally .to the refinement of the community. In 
connection with formal choirs, singing schools became general. In 
the natural course of human degeneracy, the zeal of the members of 
the choir would decline and with it their skill would abate. A new 
generation of singers would also have appeared full of promise and 
hope, at least in the judgment of their partial friends. Some 
promising leader and teacher was always ready to present himself, 
native or from a neighboring parish, with favorable recommendations 
of his skill and success, and the entire community would be engrossed 
for a winter with the excitement attending a new singing school under 
a new teacher. The excitement attendant upon the singing meetings 
was manifold, social and otherwise, and at the conclusion of the term 
a sacred concert would be required and the installation of the new 
singers in their places in the gallery. Those were memorable days, 
when a long line of singers stood around the gallery front, headed in 
the center opposite the pulpit by old ladies and gentlemen and 
terminating at either end with children in their teens. At first, but 
long ago, the pitch-pipe and tuning fork were the only instruments 
allowed, and these simply because they were necessary. Every other 
was ruled out by the pointed declaration of the prophet, " I will not 



•^3 

hear the melody of thy viols." But somehow a larger viol of greater 
dignity and sonorousness of sound, got in under another name, till at 
last an entire orchestra was established in the meeting house in spite 
of the suggestions of a similarity with the idolatrous concert of the 
"cornet, flute, dulcimer, sackbut, psaltry." The singing school, 
moreover, was often a convenient place for flirtation and sometimes 
the occasion of parish discord and strife. The musical tastes of 
the choir did not always harmonize the tempers nor even the voices 
of its members. And yet study and the practice of sacred music 
with reference to its effective and appropriate rendering in public 
worship, has been from one generation to another a most effective 
means of culture to thousands of individuals and families. Hun- 
dreds and thousands owe to the singing school and meeting house 
choir the beginning of their musical culture, and the discovery and 
development of what has been the solace of their lives. The singing 
schools and Sunday choirs of New England are in many repsects 
distinctive and should never be omitted in our recollections and 
estimates of the New England place of worship. Some years ago I 
happened to attend Sunday worship at the Royal Chapel in West- 
moreland, when the widow of the poet Wordsworth was present, and 
the family of the eminent Dr. Arnold. The chapel was filled with 
an attentive and devout congregation, mostly plain dalesmen and 
mechanics. Everything was decorous and edifying except the sing- 
ing. This was led by the clerk, and the rattling performance of these 
thick-headed, thick-voiced dalesmen, might fitly be compared to the 
jangling of sleigh bells, "quite out of tune." I could not but 
contrast the performance with any, even the most unsatisfactory, 
which might be heard in any New England meeting house. 

Probably there is no particular in which the contrast is more 
striking between the peasantry of Old England and the yeomanry of 
New England, than the singing of the country churches. Perhaps 
there is no single feature by which the New Englander in the 
country is more distinguishable than by the self-reliance and aspira- 
tion which leads him to confront any exigency and to address 
himself to any enterprise, whether this involves his personal fitness 
for any activity of life, or his confidence of success. The universality 
of the taste for music, the attention paid to singing, the diffusion of 
musical instruments among the homes of New Englanders and the 
New England emigration is to be ascribed almost entirely to the New 
England choir and the New England meeting house. 

In these inquiries respecting the agencies which have governed 
the New England character, we must remember that this character 



was not the product of a single generation under circumstances 
which are noticeable at the present time — but that it has been the 
growth of many generations and under circumstances which are 
very unlike those which now have influence. I have spoken of the 
positive village life of New England and the compact organization 
by which its families were formerly united together by religious and 
social bonds. Those influences which now exist were greatly inten- 
sified, in the earlier as compared with the present times. Few of us 
can adequately conceive of the seclusion of the great majority of 
the New England villages two generations ago. Even those which 
were on the great roads and rivers or harbors were shut up to 
themselves and their own resources. They were singularly " self- 
dependent and self-sufficing." They were in an unusual degree 
" self-contained," to use an expression applied by the Scotch to a 
dwelling, which from basement to roof-tree is a single tenement, as 
contrasted with any variety of tenement or apartment houses. A 
community which is shut up to its own inhabitants and rarely sees 
any other, which has few books, few letters, few newspapers, if it has 
any energy and power to be roused, will make the most of what it has 
within itself. Especially will this be true if it has the rude vigor of 
youth and hope and enterprise. In such a community every strong- 
minded man, every strong-hearted woman, every noticeable event, 
every sudden death, every lingering sickness, every public excitement, 
every striking piece of news, every sermon or public discourse, 
every visit of a stranger will make its definite and abiding impression. 
If the community be large enough and sympathizing enough it will 
move strongly and unitedly in response to any local excitement. 

All these conditions of intense and marked individuality were 
fulfilled in the New England communities, and as everything in their 
faith was referred to the plan, and purpose, and kingdom of God, as 
these were expounded in the meeting house, it is not surprising that 
the meeting house and the weekly worship, and the minister, and the 
chufch left its impress upon every man, woman, and child. In this 
solemn place the members of an entire community knowing one 
another's history, and position, and reputation, assembled every 
Lord's day for their common worship. They were no stupid boors, 
no thick-headed peasants, but all men of marked individuality, with 
opinions and predjudices, an originality and a humor of their own. 
Many, not to say the most of them, were keen-witted, original, self- 
relying in their intellects, even if they were limited, and prejudiced, 
and obstinate. Every man of them had a character. Every man 
had made for himself his place in the little organism, and every man 
acted and reacted upon the other with more or less of quickening 



75 

energy. Even the daring unbeliever, of whom every community 
could show here and there one, or the habitual absentee from the 
sanctuary, whose house and fields were supposed to be accursed, 
each had his lesson to impart. Every man and woman and house- 
hold became an element of life and energy in this seething common- 
wealth, in which every element was charged with an intense and 
individual vitality. 

I shall never forget an evening walk which many years ago I 
took in a country parish, in a beautiful district in England, with its 
devoted and accomplished rector, since exalted to a higher ecclesias- 
tical position. As we walked up and down the hedge rows, he 
explained to me somewhat of the individual and social life of his 
people. We met in our stroll and bowed to the lord of the manor, 
who a few years before had erected a beautiful Gothic church at his 
own expense in the old churchyard, in which grew one conspicuously 
sturdy yew tree, reported to be more than 800 years old. The com- 
munity consisted of less than a score of farmers, a few mechanics, 
with a mass of laborers who dwelt in cottages, and sent their children 
to the parish school till the age of ten or twelve, when they were 
summoned to the fields. The country itself was, in beauty and 
fertility, not unlike that to which I had been accustomed from my 
childhood. Parish churches and well provided rectories stood con- 
veniently near, and there was no want of religious or intellectual 
appliances on the part of zealous and faithful incumbents. But 
after my friend had explained to me the intellectual torpor of the 
laboring population, the wretched arrangements of their homes, and 
the depressed social condition to which they were doomed, he 
remarked in conclusion that to the clergyman in a strictly rural 
parish, it seemed almost hopeless to attempt to elevate the men who 
tilled the soil with their own hands. As he talked on, the landscape 
which had seemed so much like a New England scene, seemed so 
no longer, for the reason that it had lost the stimulating and quick- 
ening atmosphere which has made every New England hamlet and 
village such an educator to its sensitive population, and quickened 
the lowest stratum of its population into an intensely active and 
individualized intellectual and moral life. 

Scant justice has been rendered to the intellectual and business 
activity, to the far-reaching enterprise and the domestic inventiveness 
of many of the best New England villages, after they had fairly 
emerged from the barbarous age of struggle with nature, and the 
military age of battle with the Indians and the French, and the 
maturing age of separation from England. In some of these villages 
in the old time of their isolation and consequent internal self-reliance 



% 

and enterprise almost every one of the trades was represented by 
some conspicuous workman, whose work was honestly and honorably 
done, and whose name was a pledge of its fidelity and trustworthi- 
ness. Now and then a single merchant in an inland village has 
made himself conspicuous by a successful business adventure in the 
West or East India trade. From not a few New England towns 
before the Great West or even Western New York was heard of, 
regular outfits were sent forth to the fabulous South, which allured 
many a promising young man to its profitable traffic and opened the 
way to large fortunes. When Vermont, New York, ^ and Northern 
Ohio displayed in the eyes of New England the tempting promises 
which have become such splendid realizations, there were found in 
the most secluded New England villages hundreds and thousands of 
youth who were intelligent enough to appreciate their significance. 
When subsequently the prairie states and still later the mining 
territories repeated these promises, wherever there was the New 
England intelligence and the New England enterprise, whether in 
the New England at home or the emigrant New England abroad, 
there was a ready and bold response. It has come to be a proverb 
to those who have studied into this New England life, that the more 
remote and lonely is the hamlet at home, the more widely has its 
stock been expanded abroad, first through the counties of Litchfield 
and Berkshire, then through the settlements of Vermont and Western 
New York, then into Northern and Central Ohio, then into Michigan, 
then into Iowa and Minnesota, and still onward through Dakota, 
Montana, and Oregon. But wherever it goes, it carries with itself, 
the self-reliance, the mother wit, the helping hand, the sympathizing 
heart, the quickened conscience, the fear of God which the meeting 
house wrought into the original life of the little village ; which has 
sent forth the threads of this mysterious life all over the continent 
and even across the seas. 

But nothing more forcibly illustrates the excellent quality of this 
old village life than the development of the villages into the large 
and wealthy manufacturing towns and cities of New England itself. 
Scores of such towns and cities might be named which once yielded 
scanty returns from the hard hillsides and scanty valleys, but are 
now abundant in the profits of active invention and the accumulation 
of capital, all developed and gathered from within themselves, the 
growth and accumulation of which are to be distinctly traced to the 
individual genius or enterprise of some farmer's son — whom the 
school and the meeting house and the village life first stimulated 
and trained to his self-reliant enterprise and his indomitable public 
spirit. 



77 

In no one particular, however, has the ardent and self-relying 
enterprise of the New England village been more conspicuously ex- 
emplified than in its zeal for Christian missions and moral reforms. 
It was with a son of a clergyman of one of the most secluded 
country parishes in Connecticut tliat the dream of personal devotion 
to this service hardened into an unconquerable purpose, out of which 
proceeded the first and foremost organization for foreign missions of 
this country. The organization of this society was completed in 
another village. No sooner was it perfected than the intelligence 
ran through every New England township, high on the hill-tops and 
low in the valleys, and everywhere found or awakened a response of 
ardent faith and hope. From almost every one of these communities 
have proceeded bold pioneers, patient translators, skillful diplomats, 
and self-denying martyrs, who have proved themselves equal to every 
exigency in the kingdom of God which required tact or perseverance 
or zeal. In the diffusion of missionary intelligence and the excite- 
ment of missionary zeal, by its public addresses and its abundant 
prayers, the meeting house has been a constant inspiration. Many a 
time within its walls has been heard the voice of the Lord saying, 
"Whom shall I send and who will go for us," and many times the 
answer, "Here am I, Lord, send me." It has done scarcely less in 
arousing men to needed reforms at home in respect of individual 
and social vice and in instructing and stimulating their consciences 
to withstand the paralysis of godless unbelief or the rotting plague 
of intemperance and lust. Plain as their exterior has often been, 
uncouth and repulsive as their interior has usually seemed, it should 
never be forgotten that in every one of them a Prophet has con- 
tinually spoken in the name of God, with more or less earnestness 
and fidelity, and that his words have been words of life and power 
to a responsive community — educating the public conscience by 
earnest truth and opening the way for access to the divine presence 
by ardent prayers. 

The meeting house has fulfilled other functions than those directly 
and indirectly religious and intellectual. It has been also the political 
home of the community. For many generations the town meeting 
was held within its capacious enclosure. That a political meeting 
should be held in a house devoted to public worship now seems a 
grave offence to the conscience of some people of culture, and at all 
events a grave and rustic indecorum which is worse than a sin. The 
New Englander of the old time could think no such thing, for to 
him at first the church and the organized town consisted of the same 
persons. Subsequently also the doctrine was distinctly held that the 
town existed and should be controlled for the good of the church. 



78 

From this point of view it was impossible to see any incompatibility 
between a town meeting and a meeting house. 

It is a mistake, however, to suppose that this is a New England 
notion, and that no other people are guilty of sacrilege in this par- 
ticular. So soon as houses of worship were erected for Episcopalians, 
special pains were taken to claim for them a special sacredness. The 
story is told of a company of boys who found themselves in the gallery 
of a new Episcopal church, several of whom were somewhat boisterous 
and irreverent, when one of them remonstrated with angry reproof: 
"/ say, boys, I'd have you know that this is not a Presbyterian meeting 
housed The notion which was formerly rather industriously diffused, 
that political and secular meetings are never held in the houses of 
worship belonging to the Church of England, does not happen to be 
correct. The author of John Halifax writes as follows : "The poll 
was to be held in the church, /. e., for a parliamentary election — a 
not uncommon usage in county boroughs." Not very long since a 
message came from Boston in Lincolnshire to Boston in Massachu- 
setts, that the same was true of St. Botolph's church in the mother 
city in England. 

But whether or not the town meeting might properly be held in 
the meeting house, there can be no doubt that it was held there in 
fact for many generations, and that it did good service for the church 
and for the world. We all know what De Tocqueville has written 
of the New England town meeting and its relation to our political 
system and the growth of our institutions. What the sagacious Mr. 
E. A. Freeman desired most of all to witness during his recent visit 
to this country, and failed to see, to his great regret, was one of these 
meetings. Boston did not become a city till 1822, and it was in its 
town meetings that the fiery eloquence and the determined will of 
Samuel Adams inspired his fellow citizens to the decisive measures 
which secured the independence of this nation. The author of 
McFingal has depicted the humorous aspect of one of these meet- 
ings, as follows : 

And now the town was summoned, greeting. 
To grand parading of town meeting, 
A show, that strangers might appall. 
As Rome's grave senate did the Gaul. 

* * * * * 

High o'er the rout, on pulpit stairs. 
Like den of thieves in house of prayers, 

* * * * * 

Stood forth the constable, and bore 
His staff, like Merc'ry's wand of yore. 

* * * * * 



79 

Above and near the Hermetic staff 
The moderator's upper half, 
In grandeur o'er the cushion bowed, 
Like Sol half-seen behind a cloud. 
Beneath stood voters of all colors, 
Whigs, tories, orators and brawlers. 

Upon its graver side it should be remembered that in the better 
days the town and other political meetings were opened with prayer, 
and not unfrequently the freeman of the town were treated to a 
sermon. I have before me printed copies of two sermons delivered 
in the same meeting house before the freeman of one town — the one 
in 1774 on the sin of the slave trade as allowed by the State of 
Connecticut, and the other in 1S13 on the solemnity and obligation 
of the freeman's oath, which was then exacted of all voters in the 
commonwealth. 

Nor did the minister confine his political discourses to the town 
or freemen's meeting. We have already noticed what fearful fulmin- 
ations were heard on Fast days in Massachusetts and Connecticut 
upon the shortcomings of the Jeffersonian party, and the impending 
dangers to the country, and if on Thanksgiving day a more hopeful 
and roseate view, as was becoming, was taken of the situation of the 
country, the sweet was usually tempered by a subacid for the French 
party. Here and there a bolder spirit did not hesitate to carry poli- 
tics into the pulpit in his regular ministrations, but these exceptions 
were few. The New England clergymen were usually gentlemen, 
and observed the rules of a somewhat punctilious decorum. I need 
not repeat what is familiar to all, that the town meeting of New 
England is the one institution of all others that has been efficient in 
maintaining on the part of all the voting members of the common- 
wealth a sense of their duty to watch the officials who are called to 
public trusts, and on the part of the officials of their duty of render- 
ing an account of their doings to those who intrust them with office. 
Every citizen is concerned to know how his money is spent for 
bridges and roads, for schools and the poor, and it is desirable that 
he should be able to ask for any explanation from the official whom 
he elects to discharge these trusts. The New Englander has been 
able to do this from the beginning, and the training of the town 
meeting has made many a man to be, in the best sense of the term, 
a statesman. Political fidelity signifies honesty in the discharge of 
public trusts, and honesty supposes that the trustee understands the 
business which he undertakes, and can to some extent explain it to 
others. The New England meeting house has had ample opportuni- 
ties to inculcate the doctrine that there is but one kind of honesty 



80 

known to man, and that its lessons are the same for political as for 
ordinary duties. The meeting house, so far as we know, has never 
been the worse for the town meetings which have been held in it, 
and the town meetings have certainly been the better for the meeting 
houses in which they have been held. The New England pulpit may 
have been at times mistaken in its utterances in respect to public 
duty, but never in respect to the truth that political actions and 
interests should be subject to the law and kingdom of God. 

There have been times, and these not infrequent, when it was 
most befitting that the town meeting should be held in the place of 
public worship. From those earliest days, when the few Connecticut 
and the Massachusetts towns were summoned to send their strength 
into the field against the Pequots, to the days when hundreds of 
towns from the same commonwealths were summoned to send their 
tens of thousands to assert and defend the authority of the nation, 
the occasions have been many when the town meeting held in the 
house of God has been as serious and solemn as if God had spoken 
in it with an audible voice. The best soldiers in all these wars have 
been the men who first looked their fellow citizens in the face and 
read therein, as it were, the message from God that they were called 
to go into the field. In every one of these great crises the troops 
have gathered within the meeting house and upon the meeting house 
green to invoke the blessing of heaven. The most cheering thought 
to many in the field, the hospital, and the prison house, has been the 
thought that every Sunday they were remembered in the public 
prayers of the congregation. In the war of our independence, the 
last news from the camp was the theme of anxious discussion between 
the Sunday services, and during our latest war the services themselves 
were sanctified by prayer and praises for the life of the nation. This 
was no less true, when in^ colonial times the strength and beauty of 
the New England villages were sent to Lake George and Louisburg 
to battle and .die for what was thought in very deed to be the 
redemption of this continent for the true gospel. When the first 
meeting house was built there were seats assigned in it for soldiers 
who went armed to the house of God, and it will be a long time, we 
trust, before it shall cease to be ready to bless them, in the cause of 
good government at home or against any invading foe from abroad. 

The only titles of honor which we read on the earlier tombstones 
are military titles from Colonel down to Corporal, with the exception 
of Reverend and Deacon. These military titles were then no empty 
symbols, but signified the daring and exposures of a soldier's life. 
Three series of wars called for the elite of old and young to the 
front and the battle field, and in some cases, more than decimated 



81 

the able-bodied among the population. In all these wars the blessing 
hand of God was seen in the establishment and progress of His king- 
dom of Christian freedom, of independent nationality, and the rights 
of the oppressed. 

The military spirit did not always die out with the return of 
peace. It was upon the meeting house green that the appointed 
trainings and reviews were held, and upon the meeting house steps 
that the pastor implored the blessing of God upon the train bands 
of the village and township. We may not forget the half-yearly 
sports of ball and quoits, to say nothing of the wrestling matches 
which were observed under the shadow of the sacred edifice on the 
weeks of the spring election and of the autumnal Thanksgiving, when 
the old men vied with youth in earnest and good-natured strife, and 
the whole township was moved with active sympathy. 

Now and then, but rarely, a wedding would be solemnized in the 
meeting house. Less rarely a funeral, when some grave and eminent 
pillar in the church or the town, or the pastor mourned by his flock 
and his fellow elders, or some youth cut down by an illness that 
moved for weeks his associates in tearful sympathy, or called out of 
life in a moment by fatal accident. On all such occasions the meeting 
house would be crowded to the utmost, illustrating the power of a 
common sympathy to move an entire community. When some mother 
in Israel has been taken away, a lonely widow, but with a heart large 
enough to respond to the joys and sorrows of the whole village, or 
some bedridden invalid whose suffering patience for a score of years 
has been a constant sermon of patience, the Sunday sermon that 
followed the burial has left impressions and kindled aspirations which 
have made the town better for the year following, and made the gospel 
of patient endurance and Christian hopes a living reality for all the 
life time of many who listened with their hearts softened by personal 
sympathy. 

In these rambling sketches I have presumed upon the recollection 
of many of my readers of the incidents of their early New England 
life. They will all agree with me that many of the most distinct and 
lasting are those which gather about the meeting house. It is possi- 
ble that for many the old homestead has been sold or passed into the 
hands of strangers or displaced by a modern dwelling. Such will 
understand what I mean when I say that the Old Meeting House, if 
it remains, is to them more homelike than any other edifice in the 
town. As we take our seats there of a Sunday, or enter its apparently 
empty enclosure on a week-day, it is at once peopled with what was 
once an entire generation, and as our eye passes from pew to pew, 
they arc filled with the lusty and strong, the grave and matronly, the 
6 



83 

loving and beloved, the gay and confident, the gentle and blushing. 
These all live again to our memory. Some live still on the earth, 
scattered hither and thither. Others live a higher life in the house 
of God not made with hands. But in our phantasy they never cease 
to live in the old meeting house on the earth. 

As we visit the old village or township we shall be told perhaps 
that the old meeting house does not hold the same place in the 
respect of the community which it once did, that advanced thinkers 
such as formerly kept their denials and sneers to themselves, openly 
proclaim their contempt for the worship of what they call an unknown 
God, and boldly act it out, by ostentatious neglect of the Sunday 
worship, or that those who still hold fast their allegiance to the ways 
of their fathers, have relaxed very much from the earnestness and 
fervor of former times. What is practically most serious of all the 
signs of evil, is that by the removal of the population, the emigration 
to the manufacturing centres, to the large cities and the inviting and 
endless West, the old congregations are greatly diminished, the 
resources of many once thriving parishes are weakened, and as a 
consequence the old meeting houses are more or less neglected at a 
time when the culture of the times requires that they should be 
made more neat and attractive. 

In many towns the old meeting house has survived its best use- 
fulness and a better one should take its place. It is gratifying to 
know that there is scarcely a parish in New England, however scanty 
its population or resources, that cannot count among its sons, more 
than one, sometimes more than a score, who is well able to supply 
all its reasonable needs, and who if he should bethink himself of 
what the old meeting house has been to a former generation and of 
what by his aid it may become to another, would deem it an act 
of filial piety to replace the old meeting house by one that is new. 
No monument to one's name can be so noble as that provided by 
the repair or erection of a place of worship in our early home. No 
service that can be attended with such grateful recollections as that 
which may be rendered to the town or the village of our birth and 
youth. No epitaph more touching than this can be inscribed over 
the portals of a house of prayer in connection with one's name, 
'■''for he lovdh our nation and hath built us a synagogue." 



THE OLD DISTRICT SCHOOL HOUSE. 

By Judge Calvin E. Pratt, 

[Head by request before (he Society on the Evening of November 13, 1883.] 

Ladies and Gentlemen : Having had a somewhat protracted and 
varied experience as pupil and teacher in the district schools of 
New England, in an unguarded moment I promised your committee 
to write a paper upon this subject for this meeting. 

At that time I felt competent to perform the task and commenced 
it with considerable Yankee zeal. But when I realized the difficulty 
and magnitude of the subject, and saw to what a dizzy height I 
might have to climb in order properly to unfold the theme, I found 
myself very much in the condition of one of my old schoolmates, 
who having read " T%vo Years Before the Mast " and the " Pirate's 
O^vn Book " conceived the splendid idea of becoming a sailor. He 
accordingly proceeded to Boston on foot and shipped at once on a 
vessel ready to sail. The ship had scarcely got outside the harbor 
before the captain ordered my young sailor friend aloft to unfurl a 
sail. The boy looked up at the towering mast-top, and then at the 
captain, but made no start to climb the rigging. The captain ordered 
him a second time, with the same result, and then said to him : 
"Why don't you obey orders.''" "I can't, sir," said the young man. 
"But didn't you ship as an able-bodied seaman.?" "Yes, sir; but 
I am not the man I thought I was." 

In preparing this paper I found I was not the man I thought I 
was when the promise was made. But if, in attempting my share 
this evening in unfurling a sail upon the good old New England 
ship "District School," I fall, I feel assured it will be into the ocean 
of your kind indulgence. 

The monosylable "Home" expresses more to the genuine New 
Englander than any other word in the English language. To a 
country born and brought up Yankee, this word is a gallery of 



84 

exquisite paintings and a volume of delightful reminiscences. 
Attachment to and love for home is the leading characteristic of 
New England character. Wherever duty, enterprise, ambition or 
curiosity may compel a Yankee to go, his great and all absorbing 
object is, either to find a home in some other place or to acquire 
means to return and enjoy one in the land of his birth. 

It is apparent from the history of the New England States that 
the great purpose of all their laws, customs, and institutions, has been 
to beget and foster a love for and pride in New England home life. 
So deeply is this trait imbedded in the character of the people that 
wherever they may happen to go they take and establish New England 
habits and customs. Among the many and peculiar traits of character, 
perhaps the most prominent, were austere piety and a predominant 
desire for universal education. 

No picture of a New England home from fifty to one hundred 
years ago could be formed in the mind without having in a prominent 
position two objects — a meeting house and a district school house. 
There could never be any mistake in recognizing these important 
points, for however the landscapes might differ these two objects 
were alike in all. 

Last year, at the yearly meeting, you were treated to a discourse 
on the meeting house. This important feature in the picture having 
been properly celebrated, you are now asked to look away in the 
background, past the old homestead with all its sweet surroundings, 
along the dusty road, or across the stony pastures, beyond the 
gloomy church (for it is a week day), where you cannot fail to see a 
little paintless one-story building which you will at once recognize as 
the district school house. That weather-worn, dilapidated structure 
is the keystone to the arch of civilization upon this continent. 
Inside its hacked, scratched, marked and battered walls, many 
statesmen, orators, and philosophers have obtained all the education 
of which they could boast. 

I think the late Bayard Taylor has stated that in Iceland there is 
believed a theory, that in the Winter season language as it is spoken 
is frozen solid and so remains until it is thawed out in the Spring, 
when it is reproduced and mingled with melifluous music. 

Did you ever imagine what would be the sound and the history 
if the walls of a district school house could give forth all that has 
taken place in the precinct they surround. But that little building 
has not only what might be termed a personal history, but it repre- 
sents a democratic American idea and is the essential support of the 
Republic. 



85 

It is undoubtedly true, that as fast as towns were organized in 
the New England States, measures were taken to establish common 
schools, but it is sufficient to our purpose this evening merely to 
allude to the establishment of the system in the first settlement 
alone. Neither is it necessary to minutely trace the history of the 
school house from the early periods, as every one must infer that 
they were such only as the conditions and circumstances of the 
people could afford, commencing with the log hut and gradually 
improving to the present day. 

The first allusion in the old colony records to schools is under 
date of 1635, when it was ordered by the court "That Benjamin 
Eaton, with his mother's consent, is put to Bridget Fuller, being to 
keep him at school two years, and employ him after in such service 
as she saw good and he shall be fit for." 

No further mention is made of the subject until 1663, when it 
was proposed by the court " unto the several townships in this juris- 
diction as a thing that they ought to take into their serious consider- 
ation that some course may be taken that in every town there be a 
schoolmaster set up to train up children to reading and writing." 
Seven years after this date the court made a grant of all such profits 
as might accrue to the colony from fishing with nets, for and toward 
a free school. 

In 1671, John Martin reported an offer to erect and keep a 
school for teaching of the children and youth of the town of 
Plymouth to read and write and cast accounts. 

In 1773, it was ordered by the court that the charge of the free 
school, which was thirty-two pounds a year, shall be defrayed by the 
treasurer out of the profits arising from the fishing at the cape, until 
such times as the minds of the French be known, concerning which 
it shall be returned at next court election. 

The first mention of a school for females in Plymouth Colony 
records seems to have been made in 1793, when a committee was 
chosen to consider the subject, who made a report in favor of the 
project, which after a long and violent discussion was adopted by a 
small majority. One opponent vigorously lamented this new depar- 
ture from long established methods, declaring most vehemently that 
the world would come to a pretty pass, as he termed it, " if wives and 
daughters would look over the shoulders of their husbands and 
fathers and offer to correct as they wrote such errors in spelling as 
they might commit." 

Such is the meagre record preserved of the establishment of the 
system of common education in Plymouth County. 



86 

But history is not silent as to the causes which induced the 
Pilgrim Fathers to act with zeal and foresight in this direction. It 
must be conceded that the colonization of New England was a 
consequence of the great struggle that was then going on between 
temporal and spiritual tyranny and civil and religious freedom. 

Many of the Pilgrims were men of learning, to whom the philoso- 
phers and writers of antiquity were familiar, and who left behind 
them valuable libraries in which was recorded the wisdom of ages. 
They left the land of their nativity to found a home in the wilder- 
ness secure from secular and religious tyranny. Even before they 
had subdued the forests they laid the foundation upon which the 
Republic now so securely rests, by providing for universal education. 
It is fair to claim from the great sacrifices made and wisdom 
displayed to build up institutions of learning, and educate all ranks 
of society, that even then they looked forward to colonial inde- 
pendence. 

As appears from the colonial record I have quoted, the methods 
and scope of education in the common schools were crude and 
incomplete. A system adapted to those times became unfit for the 
wants of the people when commerce became extended, easy com- 
munication established, and knowledge of art and science introduced. 
Changes were inevitable to meet the increasing demands of society 
for a better preparation on the part of its members to discharge 
their duties as citizens of a free country. 

A few examples will illustrate these progressive changes in the 
history of New England society. 

In those early days that institution of personal harmony and 
sweet sound, the village choir, was unknown, but the psalmody was 
recited by pious deacons to devout congregations, who regarded it 
in this form as simply metrical devotion, but as the work of the evil 
one if accompanied with instrumental music. 

" The New England primer exhibited the mournful martyrdom 
of John Rodgers, with the sorrows of his weeping wife in more 
mournful particulars, or taught in homely rhyme the important facts 
to be ever borne in mind by the rising generation, that in ' Adam's 
fall we sinned all,' and that 'Young Obedias, 

David Josias, 
All were pious.' 
It was a great accomplishment of learning in a common school, to 
be able to repeat from memory a chapter of the New Testament, in 
the long and distinct tone blending the nasal melody of pronuncia- 
tion with the wailing lamentation of bobbing cadence." * * * 



87 

These were the days when erudition was administered by dames 
whose discipline is commemorated by the sweet numbers of an 
English bard : 

" Her cap far whiter than the driven snow 
Emblem right of decency doth yield ; 

Her apron dyed in grain as blue, I trow, 
As is the hair-bell that adorns the field ; 

And in her hand for sceptre she doth wield 
Two birchen rods with anxious fear entwined." 

Improvement in text books, in the qualifications of teachers, and 
methods of discipline and instruction, though sure, was exceedingly 
slow until the present century. It is not many years since the only 
true guide to the English tongue was Perry s Spelling Book, with the 
wood-cut form of the venerable Noah Webster upon the first page 
in the full glory of his curled wig, staring out like a scare-crow to 
frighten the lisping from the tree of knowledge. 

At a later period a decided improvement in the number and 
character of the text books was made, when Scott's Lessons, DabalVs 
Arithmetic, Murray s Granunar, and Le Bruns Geography were intro- 
duced ; but the proverb, "Spare the rod and spoil the child," con- 
tinued to command the most implicit obedience on the part of 
teachers, as many of us can painfully attest. 

The reform in the location and building of school houses in the 
rural districts of New England, and improvements for warming and 
ventilating, and furnishing comfortable seats, may be said to have 
commenced about the year 1840, although there are many still left 
of those built at the beginning of the century. 

The period, however, to which I desire to call your attention for 
a few moments, is that embraced between 1820 and 1850. I imagine 
from the state of things at this period that it fairly represents the 
twenty and perhaps the thirty years immediately prior thereto, except 
in the number and possibly the quality of the text books. If this 
proposition needs any proof it is abundantly sustained by the tradi- 
tions with which we were all familiar in our younger days. Of course 
it would follow that as soon as it became profitable to print and 
change school books, the people of New England would not be 
found behind in the race of enterprise and and improvement. 

Before describing a school district, it is proper we should realize 
the condition of the towns at this period. 

At this time there were no railroads, and a journey to the Capital 
of the State occupied several days, and to the City of New York, 
weeks, and neither was taken except upon rare occasions and urgent 
or official business. 



A town of any importance always rejoiced in the possession of 
at least one lawyer, who always worked hard, lived well, and died 
poor. It also had a minister for each creed that could muster mem- 
bers and means enough to build a meeting house. These men were 
generally celebrated for their industry, learning, piety, and good 
works. They were, withal, a vigorous and healthy class — their 
assiduous attention to their pastoral duties furnishing out-door exer- 
cise, so that those diseases now so prevalent, that can only be 
remedied by a sea voyage, were entirely unknown. When once 
settled, it was, like the tenure of the judges, "for life or during 
good behavior." 

The ""calls to fields of duty" in the large cities were not so loud 
in those days, or they lacked some potent charm accompaniment, 
for they were seldom heard or heeded. Ministers generally had large 
families of children, and when such was the case they could engage 
in but little foreign missionary work. 

One minister at least, each year, was placed upon the School 
Committee of the town, the objects being first, that the literary and 
moral qualifications of the teachers might be properly examined and 
passed upon, and second, that scholars might be duly admonished 
on examination day. 

There was also the usual supply of deacons to keep unruly boys 
in order and pass around the contribution box. The most noticeable 
feature about them was that they always wore, upon these dress 
occasions, their wedding coats and squeaking boots. 

Each town also had an old-fashioned allopathic doctor, who bled 
blistered and dosed the people, without reference to medical ethics 
— his mistakes, if any, always being buried with his patients. 

Another and somewhat pretentious class of persons was that of 
the ex-schoolmaster. It never seemed to me there was any place in 
the economy of society for an ex-schoolmaster any more than there 
is for an ex-judge. They have so long been viewed by their scholars 
with such awe, and looked upon as the fountain of knowledge, and 
have acquired such a dogmatic and domineering habit, that they 
require perfection and obedience in all with whom they come in 
contact. But if there is any office which they are fully persuaded it 
was nature's design they should fill, it is that of school committee. 
As might be reasonably expected an ex-schoolmaster was generally 
elected to fill this important office. 

Each town had its necessary quota of mechanics and tradesmen, 
but the majority was composed of small farmers born and brought 
up upon the rocky farms they occupied. The oldest sons of the 
farmers would go West or to a trade, while the youngest would 



89 

remain and receive the homestead for seeing, as it was called, the 
old folks through life. Thus the changes in the habits and customs 
of the people were few and slight. 

Great wealth had not set the example of extravagance, but plenty 
presided at every board and comfort sat smiling at every fireside. 
Every man was the equal of his neighbor and no one recognized a 
boss. Everything was turned to account to make people social. 
The breaking out of roads, as it was called, in Winter, was made an 
occasion for great sport. The raising with its inevitable black strap 
(New England rum and molasses); the husking with its supper and 
the prized red ear of corn that conferred such an inestimable 
privilege;* the quilting and paring bees; made up a round of 
pleasures such as no other people ever enjoyed. 

The ladies did not take a pack of cards and go out expecting to 
make fifteen or twenty calls in a day, and rejoice when they found a 
neighbor not at home so they could leave a card and get credit for 
a call, but they started out about half past twelve, as soon as the 
"dinner things were put away," and spent the afternoon and invari- 
ably staid to tea. In this way all the neighborhood matters could be 
fully discussed and definitely settled. 

A town was divided, according to the territory and inhabitants, 
into districts, each of which, by virtue of some principle of state rights, 
squatter sovereignty, or immemorial custom, was allowed to manage 
its own internal affairs, such as the location, building and rej)airs of 
school houses, election of prudential committee, and the raising and 
expenditure of money for school purposes in the district. This 
elemental system was the precursers and foundation of democratic 
principles in this country. ******* 

If, as was generally the case, there was any unpleasantness 
between different localities in the district, it was sure to come to the 
surface at each recurring school meeting. 

The present generation, if it has the congenital curiosity to 
investigate the subject, will find a fair substitute for one of these 
meetings by attending a ward primary of the present day. 

It may not be amiss to say a word about the old school house 
with its pretentious porch. Like the old Queen's County court house 
it was placed in the exact geographical centre of the district. The 
people of the East would not allow it to be placed one inch farther 
West, and those of the other points of compass were equally 
obstinate. " The doorstep was a broad unhewn rock brought from 
the pasture near by. It generally sloped from the door, so as to 
♦Authorized the finder to kiss all the girls. 



90 

become in icy times a dangerous trap for the unwary," at the same 
time to admonish the master that he must pass out and in with due 
gravity and decorum. The outside of the structure was a standing 
memento of victory to the party of economy in the district (the 
name reformer had not then been invented), as its surface had 
received no paint within the memory of the oldest inhabitant. The 
nails had long since lost their firm grip upon the shingles and clap- 
boards, so that its outward habiliments resembled an old suit of 
ready-made clothing. But upon the surface, as high as mischievous 
boys could reach with their Yankee kit of tools — a jack-knife — were 
carved "the likeness of all things in the heavens and on earth ever 
beheld by a country school boy, and sundry guesses at things he 
never had seen," in fact, a greater variety of names, dates, and 
hieroglyphics, than ever adorned the same amount of space upon an 
Egyptian monument. 

It was never difficult for a stranger to guess who was the prettiest 
girl in school, among the large ones, by the number of times her 
name was carved or written upon the walls and benches of the 
school house. 

As we enter the porch we find one side devoted to the girls and 
the other to the boys. Some shelves and wooden pegs grace the 
sides; the former intended for dinner pails, and the latter for caps, 
bonnets, and shawls. On the boys' side, however, experience soon 
demonstrated that it was not a moral axiom that nothing was made 
in vain, for the proof was furnished by these disused dinner-pail 
shelves. It did not require more than one or two mistakes, involving 
the loss of a dinner, to satisfy a Yankee boy that his pocket or desk 
was a better place for his dinner than the shelves. 

As we enter the school room we find a space about twenty feet 
long by ten broad which forms the parade ground of the school, at 
the opposite end of which is the teacher's desk upon a platform. 
On either side are three or four rows of desks, and a front row of 
low seats without desks for the smallest scholars. They are made of 
plank, and as a pictorial record they out rival the outside of the 
school house. The floor from each side of the centre space is raised 
to an angle of about twenty degrees. 

It is not quite clear what was the design of the architect who 
invented this style of floor for a school room. When I attended 
school, the current of opinion was about equally divided between two 
theories. One being that each scholar should have an unobstructed 
view of all that transpired in the parade ground space ; the other 
being that such a construction facilitated the master in pulling the 



91 

unruly culprits into the amphitheatre for punishment. Whatever 
may have been the dominant motive of the architect, it was equally 
and admirably adapted for both purposes. 

Near the centre of this space stood an old box stove of the 
Revolutionary pattern (which had lost two of its legs in battle and 
been supplied with artificial limbs in the shape of brick) with a big 
zigzag crack in either side caused by some unknown boy placing a 
snow ball on it when red hot. ****** 

It was always known a few days before school commenced, who 
was to be the teacher, and his or her merits were duly discussed 
throughout the district. It was not unfrequently the custom for the 
teacher to board around, as in this way the whole of the school money 
could be paid in wages. Each family would in such case board the 
teacher a certain number of days for each scholar it sent to school. 
When this was not done it was customary to treat the teacher like 
the town poor, put him up at auction and strike him off to the lowest 
bidder. I was once struck off at a dollar and a half per week. 
After a few meals, and much morbid contemplation, I was compelled 
to conclude that the fortunate bidder got the best end of the bargain. 
At one time a teacher was expected to sweep the school house and 
build the fires, but afterward it was customary for the large girls to 
take turns in sweeping, and the boys in building the fires, at Winter 
school, and they not unfrequently found it not inconvenient to so 
arrange matters as to carry on both occupations at the same time. 

Time will not permit any reference to what were called Summer 
schools. These impressions being the earliest are the most deeply 
cut into the memory. Who does not vividly remember the outfit for 
this great undertaking.? The Sunday clothes; the new dinner 
basket and primer; the awe with which we approached the teacher; 
the toil of learning the alphabet ; the strife to wear home the medal ; 
the characteristics of playmates ; all come crowding upon the recol- 
lection at the mention of the subject. 

The great feature, however, — the sweepstakes, — to a boy, is going 
to Winter school. His mind has been duly prepared for this great 
event by a long line of traditions. He already knows all the games 
and sports in their season, and also all the tricks and the penalties 
they involve. 

His outfit generally consists of a new suit of clothes, slate and 
pencil, a ruler and lead plummet (for writing books remember are 
not made of ruled paper), necessary books, and his dinner. 

He must start by sunrise in order to secure a back seat — his 
importance depends a great deal upon how high he sits. 



9^ 

The first morning is spent by the teacher, in making his set speech, 
and in ascertaining the names, ages and qualifications of the pupils, 
with a view to classifying them — by the scholars, in criticising the 
teacher and his methods. At half past ten a recess of five minutes 
is given separately to the boys and girls. This may seem to you a 
trivial circumstance to mention but connected with it was a custom 
of great importance. Each scholar was required, just before passing 
out at the door to turn and make his or her manners to the teacher, 
and the same mark of respect was required to be observed to every 
person met upon the road. 

It is undoubtedly in a great measure due to this custom that the 
New Englander stands unrivaled for politeness and grace throughout 
the world — allowing him to be the judge. 

It is hardly necessary to speak of the "nooning" as it was called, 
because there is now an institution near at hand that resembles it in 
many respects — that is, the New York Stock Exchange. 

The instant the words " you are dismissed " are uttered, the air is 
shattered by every kind of screech and yell. The rustling of skirts 
and the tramp of heavy boots add to the confusion. " The packets, 
pails and baskets yield forth their savory contents of every descrip- 
tion. Bread, cheese, pies, doughnuts, sausages and apples, are being 
devoured as if upon a wager." In about five minutes the boys are 
through with their dinner. The fact is some of them have eaten a 
good part of theirs at recess so as to have more time to play at noon. 

The ingenious political student of the present day may imagine 
that he discovers in this early frugality of time, the forerunner of 
the application of business principles to municipal governments. 

The chief business of the school now commences. The boys 
leave the school room to engage in the various pastimes which serve 
in their season to make the nooning the great attraction of going to 
Winter school. A boy once said, " that going to school was like so 
many thanksgiving days except the music, the sermon, and the dinner." 
It is probable if the music and dinner could have been furnished he 
would have consented to forego the sermon. 

During the Summer and Fall the farm work prevented the boys 
from seeing each other often, but in the Winter little was done 
except the chores and the getting up of the year's stock of wood. 
There was plenty of time, therefore, afforded for social amusement, 
the plans for which were generally concocted at school. 

But the spelling schools, sleigh rides, cracking the whip, ducking, 
coasting and skating parties, did not include all that was contrived 
at Winter schools. 



03 

Time will not permit a description of the various devices for 
mischief and amusement. The ingeniously bent pin set for the 
unwary boy as he took his seat, the scattering of shot upon the floor 
to trip some one while ascending the isle, the miniature catapult 
made from a quill to throw shot or peas across the school room, the 
inevitable paper ball, all did good service in the hands of mischievous 
authors. 

It is impossible to describe the school teachers of this period in 
less than a volume. Of the school mistresses as they were called, 
there were but two classes, arranged somewhat according to age — 
the beautiful and the interesting. Of the school masters it may be 
said that nature seemed to have exhausted itself in producing a 
variety. 

Teaching was not a profession but a make-shift for those engaged 
in the occupation. In those days in Massachusetts there were just 
two ways to rise very high in the world, one was to become a clerk 
in Boston, and the other to go through college. Young men would 
" struggle for years between despair and a latin dictionary," to obtain 
what until recently was conferred for being Governor for one year. 

Young men working their way through college found in teaching 
a profitable method of spending their Winters. Various other classes 
of young men essayed the attempt while waiting for a more lucrative 
opening in life. It is therefore apparent that the interest in and 
qualifications for teaching were meagre indeed. 

The great desideratum was to maintain order. The master who 
could prevent all whispering, shuffling of the feet, and loud studying, 
was regarded as an excellent teacher. But if in addition he took 
occasion evenings, when not employed setting copies in the writing 
books, to call upon parents, and indulged in a little judicious flattery 
of the children, he was a prize. 

The various penalties inflicted for school crimes were based upon 
the legal theory, to wit, not only to punish the offender and satisfy 
the offended majesty of the law, but to deter others from like 
offending. Holding a book at arms length, or keeping with the 
forefinger a nail from coming out of the floor, standing on one foot, 
wearing the fool's cap, up to having the palms blistered with a 
ferule and the sedentary portion of the body tingled with a birch 
rod, were familiar methods for enforcing discipline and promoting 
moral culture. Added to this was the old, and by boys the ever- 
dreaded, New England custom for the parents to repeat the dose at 
home. 

Many a time under this code has the sister or younger brother 
kept the big brother on his good behavior for half the Winter by 



94 

promising not to tell when he had been punished at school. There 
was only one penalty which perhaps might be properly termed 
capital punishment, and that was making a boy go over and sit on 
the girls' side of the school room. 

But however we may view these quaint ways, in justice to the 
ancient school teacher, male or female, it must be said that parents 
were never required to see that their children mastered their tasks, 
and the school room was a place for study as well as recitation. 

It was expected of the teachers, and the teachers expected, to see 
that the pupils learned their lessons, and they never supposed their 
whole duty was performed by merely hearing a child recite what had 
been learned at home the evening before. With this exceptional 
and very modern fault it must be conceded that there has been an 
astonishing progress in the text books and facilities for teaching the 
young. 

It would surprise a student of Packer or the Polytechnic to see 
the text books and hear a class of fifty years ago. The writers of 
school books were sovereigns in their several departments of knowl- 
edge. They never deigned to explain the reason or philosophy of 
the subject, but filled their books with rules to be learned by heart 
as it was most properly called. Faith and memory were the great 
requisites to make a successful scholar. 

But it will not surprise many in this audience if it is stated that 
during this period it was in the district school houses of New England 
that the fires of abolition were kindled, which at last spread over this 
entire country, melting in their fervent heat the chains of slavery. 
The reading books began to be filled with selections from anti-slavery 
orators. The geography, I recollect, contained pictures of slaves at 
work in the cotton fields with a Legree overseer, whip in hand, in 
the foreground, to appeal to the sensibilities and impress the minds 
of the young. 

I must allude to one answer in the old Olny's geography that I 
easily learned and always remembered. I shall always recollect the 
significant and familiar question : "What is the occupation of the 
Indians?" The answer was: '"'Hunting, fishing, and war.'" We never 
answered this question without a pang of regret that we were not 
born Indians. 

There was another geographical answer that once amused a 
school which illustrates the old fashioned methods of reciting from 
memory. A pert, prompt little fellow was asked who was Christopher 
Columbus? He immediately answered at the top of his voice, appar- 
parently fearing some one in the room might not witness his masterly 



95 

intellectual triumph : " Round like an apple and flattened at both 
ends." 

But notwithstanding the unphilosophical text books, and the 
defective methods of instruction, it must not be assumed that the 
Yankee schoolboy was devoid of natural wit. In the latter part of 
the period to which I have called your attention, some persons either 
from a desire to supply the books or some other cause succeeded in 
introducing into the schools an elementary treatise on physiology. 

It so happened that the construction and purpose of the organs 
of the throat were the subjects of the lesson. The teacher under- 
took to explain in this wise: "You will remember there are two 
passages down the throat, one for food and the other for drink, and 
there is a valve or clapper hung between these passages so that 
when the food is going down it fits over the drink passage and when 
drink is going down it goes over the food passage, and this accounts 
for often hearing people say that something has gone down the 
wrong way." One of the boys, of a practical turn of mind, imme- 
diately replied : "That clapper must play like the devil eating pud- 
ding and milk." * ^-^^ «^ * ^^ * * * * 

It might not be unpleasant to recall some of the prominent 
characters that figured in our school days, but it is a waste of time, 
for they have already crowded themselves upon your memory. 
From the little girl buzzing over her lesson like a bee over a honey- 
suckle, to the great lubberly boy of twenty attending school for the 
last season, who divides his time between his books and gazing at 
the mistress of his heart upon the opposite side of the school room. 

Every conceivable quality of heart and mind was represented. 
But there was, in every school, at least one who was always unpop- 
ular if not sometimes an object of hatred, and that was the good, the 
moral boy of the school. He who was always held up by the teachers 
and parents as a model whose qualities it was hopeless to emulate. 
He always had his lessons perfect, spoke up loud, toed the crack in 
the floor when called out to spell, always told the master the pranks 
of the other boys, staid in at recess to study his lesson, never 
tracked in any snow or mud at noontime to make work for the girls. 
If there was any conspiracy to lock out the school master, stuff the 
chimney, or commit any other mischief, he was sure to find it out 
and expose the conspirators. 

It was, however, a great mistake to dislike this class of boys, for 
they became afterward an indispensable portion of society. This 
class furnished the quartermasters, commissaries, and sanitary 
commission agents in the last war, as well as many of the reform 
statesmen of the last few years. 



06 

But the time approaches for a district school to come to an end 
as well as this paper. 

There is to be no more fun for the season of which I have been 
speaking. It is the afternoon of the last day of school, the grand 
field day of review, and dress parade, all in one. " The scholars are 
seated at their books. The writing books have been gathered in to 
be placed before the school committee. The master is there with 
his best coat and hair combed in the most genteel style." The 
scholars know pretty well what questions they will have to answer, 
and have been told to speak up "loud and distinct." The school 
room has been swept as clean as an old broom and some boughs can 
make it. Chairs have been borrowed from the neighborhood for the 
visitors. The last injunction is issued against whispering and the 
scholars are in palpitating expectation. 

The minister and ex-school master and prudential committee, 
and some of the parents, finally arrive and are received with bows 
and courtesys, and the examination goes on according to the pro- 
gramme previously understood by the master and pupils. 

At the end the annual speech of the minister is made, wherein 
the scholars are reminded of the superior advantages they enjoy 
over their forefathers, and that they live in a country where all can 
be Presidents, Senators, Judges and Members of Congress. These 
being country schools they never added the ofiice of alderman as 
the shining goal (or jail however you may pronounee it) to which 
their ambition might aspire. 

After the speeches a prayer is offered and school is dismissed. 
The last snowball is thrown, the last trip-up attempted, the last 
words exchanged, and the boys and girls wend their way to the old 
homestead to remain until December comes round again. 

Many of the old district school houses still remain in New 
England, but much the larger number have given place to new 
structures, with all the improvements required for comfort and 
health. The oldfashioned school master, with his ferule and pen- 
knife, has disappeared. The white cap and apron blue has given 
place to the vigor and energy of greener age and the best capacity 
of the youthful and beautiful. " The experienced and gifted have 
been devoted to the good work of improving the minds and expand- 
ing the capacities of those who are to be the men of affairs of 
another generation, to whom is to be transmitted our inheritance of 
rights, and on whom is to rest the responsible duty of sustaining and 
perfecting the institutions that New England patriotism has planted 
and wisdom matured." 



PROCEEDINGS 

AT THE 

SIXTH ANNUAL MEETING 

AND 

SIXTH ANNUAL FESTIVAL 

OF 

THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY 

IN THE CITY OF BROOKLYN, 



Including a pater read before the Society, February 4, 18S6, by 

Hon. W. p. Sheffield, of Newport, Rhode Island, on 

"The Soldiers and Sailors of New England." 



OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, COUNCIL, MEMBERS, 

STANDING COMMITTEES, 

and 

BY-LAWS OF THE SOCIETY. 



BROOKLYN. 

1886. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Objects of the Society, ...,.■...• 3 

Terms of Membership, .......... 3 

Officers, .......... ... 4 

Directors, ............ 5 

Council, ............. 5 

Standing Committees, .......... 6 

Report of Sixth Annual Meeting, ....... 7 

Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Festival, . . .... 15 

Menu, . . . . • 16 

Address of President Benj. D. Silliman, i? 

Letter to General Grant, ......... 20 

Speech of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, 22 

Rev. Noah Porter, LL.D., 27 

Hon. William P. Frye, 32 

Hon. W. W. Astor 40 

Hon. George William Curtis, . . .... 41 

Frank R. Lawrence, Esq., ....... 47 

Hon. Daniel D. Whitney, ....... 50 

Hon. Seth Low, ........ 51 

Rev. John W. Chadwick, ........ 56 

Rev. William A. Snively, D.D., 60 

Hon John W. Hunter, ........ 63 

Hon. William Sullivan, ........ 65 

Paper on " The Soldiers and Sailors of New England," .... 69 

Letter to Mr. Silliman, 87 

Reply of Mr. Silliman, ..."...... 88 

Certificate of Incorporation, ......... 8g 

By-Laws, 93 

Honorary Members, .......... 99 

Life Members, ............ 99 

Annual Members, 100 

Meetings of Society, ........... 105 

Form of Bequest, 105 



OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY. 



The New England Society in the City of Brooklyn is incorporated and 
organized, to commemorate the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers ; to encourage 
the study of New England history ; to establish a library, and to promote 
charity, good fellowship and social intercourse among its members. 



TERMS OF MEMBERSHIP. 



Admission Fee, ..... $10,00 

Annual Dues, ...... 5.00 

Life Membership, besides Admission Fee, . . 50.00 

Payable at Election, except Annual Dues, which are payable in January of eachyear. 

Any member of the Society in good standing may become a Life Member 
on paying to the Treasurer the sum of fifty dollars ; or on paying a sum which 
in addition to dues previously paid by him shall amount to fifty dollars, and 
thereafter such member shall be exempt from further payment of dues. 

Any male person of good moral character, who is a native or descendant 
of a native of any of the New England States, and who is eighteen years old 
or more is eligible. 

If in the judgment of the Board of Directors, they are in need of it, the 
widow or children of any deceased member shall receive from the funds of the 
Society, a sum equal to five times the amount such deceased member has paid 
to the Society. 

The friends of a deceased member are requested to give to the Historiog- 
rapher early information of the time and place of his birth and death, with brief 
incidents of his life for publication in our annual report. Members who change 
their address should give the Secretary early notice. 

%^° It is desirable to have all worthy gentlemen of New England descent 
residing in Brooklyn, become members of the Society. Members are requested 
to send applications of their friends for membership to the Secretary. 
Address, 

THOMAS S. MOORE, Recording Secretary, 

102 Broadway, New York. 



OFFICERS 

1886. 



President : 
JOHN WINSLOW. 



First Vice-President : 
CALVIN E. PRATT. 



Second Vice-President . 
BENJ. F. TRACY. 



Treasurer : 
WILLIAM B. KENDALL. 



Becoi'ding Secretary : 
THOMAS S. MOORE. 



Corresponding Secretary : 
Rev. a. p. PUTNAM. 



HistorwgrapJier : 
PAUL L. FORD. 



Librarian : 
CHARLES E. WEST, LL.D. 



[At a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Society held on the second 
day of February, 1886, Mr. Benjamin D. Silliman, the President, declined a 
re-election, and Mr. John Winslow was elected for the ensuing year.] 



DIRECTORS. 



For One Year : 
Benjamin F. Tracy. A. S. Barnes. 

Henry W. Slocum. George B. Abboti. 

Nelson G. Carman, Jr. 

For Two Years : 
Benjamin D. Silliman. Hiram W. Hunt. 

George H. Fisher. William H. Williams. 

Henry E. Pierrepont. 



William H. Lyon. 
William B. Kendall. 



Calvin E. Pratt. 
John Winslow. 



For Three Years . 



J. S. Case. 



For Four Years : 



Joseph F. Knapp. 



COUNCIL 



Albert E. Lamb. 
J. Lester Keep. 



Ransom H. Thomas, 
Chas. N. Manchester. 



A. A. Low. 

A. M. White. 

S. B. Chittenden. 

A. F. Cross. 

S. L. Woodford. 

Henry Coffin. 

Charles Pratt. 

C. L. Benedict. 

Thomas H. Rodman. 

Augustus Storrs. 



Arthur Mathewson. 
D. L. Northrup. 
Henry Sanger. 
W. B. Dickerman. 
H. W. Ma.wvell. 
Seth Low. 
Isaac H. Cary. 
H. H. Wheeler. 
W. A. White. 
Darwin R. James. 



J. R. Gowing. 
A. S. Barnes. 
John Claflin. 
Jeremiah P. Robinson. 
J. S. T. Stranahan. 
Willard Bartlett. 
L. S. Burnham. 
Henry Earl. 
Jasper W. Gilbert. 
M. N. Packard. 



STANDING COMMITTEES 



Finance : 
William H. Lyon, George H. Fisher, 

Albert E. Lamb. 



Charity : 
Benjamin F. Tracy, Henry W. Slocum, 

J. F. Knapp. 



I)ivitatio7is : 
Benjamin D. Silliman, John Winslow, 

A. P. Putnam. 



Annual Dinner : 

Hiram W. Hunt, Chas. N. Manchester, 

Ransom H. Thomas. 



Publications : 
Nelson G. Carman, Jr., William H. Williams, 

J. S. Case. 



Anmial Reception : 
President and Vice-Presidents. 



THE SIXTH ANNUAL MEETING. 



The Sixth Annual Meeting of the New England Society in 
the City of Brooklyn was held in the Directors' Room in the 
Academy of Music, Monday evening, December 2d, 1885. 

Mr, Benjamin D. Silliman, the President of the Society, 
called the meeting to order, and officiated as chairman. 

The minutes of the Fifth Annual Meeting, held Dec. 3, 
1884, were read and approved, 

Hon, William B. Kendall, Treasurer of the Society, pre- 
sented his Annual Report, showing a balance on hand of 
$12,240.76 deposited in the following institutions: 

Brooklyn Savings Bank $3,000 00 

South Brooklyn Savings Institution 3,000 00 

Dime Savings Bank 3,000 00 

Williamsburgh Savings Bank 3,000 00 

Brooklyn Trust Company ■. . 235 73 

In Treasurer's hands 5 00 

$12,240 73 
which was on motion approved and ordered to be placed on 
file. There was appended to the Treasurer's report a certificate 
signed by the Finance Committee that the same had been 
examined and found to be correct. 



The President made his Annual Report, which was as 
follows,: 

ANNUAL REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE SOCIETY. 

In making the report required by the By-Laws, you will 
not be displeased that I am under the necessity of substantially 
repeating what has been said at each preceding annual meeting 
— that the Society is largely prosperous, and enabled fully to 
perform all the duties which it assumed. It commemorates 
the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, and cherishes and 



8 

strengthens our reverence and affection for their characters and 
memory. It preserves the history of their deeds and their 
virtues, records the mighty results which, throughout our vast 
country have followed their teachings and example, and it has 
promoted charity, goodfellowship and social intercourse among 
our members. 

The Report of the Treasurer, Hon. Wm. B. Kendall, shows 
that the balance in the treasury at this date is $12,240.73, and 
our membership, as appears by the report of Hon. Thomas S. 
Moore, the Secretary, is four hundred. 

In this connection I desire to call attention to the practi- 
cability and the expediency of a large increase of members of 
the Society. It will be easy for each of us to introduce one or 
more new members during the coming year. If gentlemen do 
this, there will be no difficulty in doubling or trebling 
the membership within that time. This will enlarge our 
means of beneficial action, and will increase the fund from 
which we hope to dispense aid and comfort to those of our 
number who may hereafter be in need. I would earnestly 
commend this subject to the favor of every gentleman present. 

The annual festival is near at hand — on the twenty-first of 
the present month. We have every reason to believe that it 
will be as distinguished in the character of our honored guests, 
as those which have preceded it have been. I need not say, for 
you all well know that the previous festivals were conspicuous, 
not only for their social pleasure, but for their high intellectual 
interest. If there are any members who have not yet pro- 
cured their tickets for the approaching dinner, it is important 
they should do so before the loth inst., after which date 
tickets cannot be reserved for members, but will be sold to 
such proper persons (whether members of the Society or not) 
as may apply for them. 

It is proposed to hold a meeting of the Society about the 
middle of February (at which members can introduce their 
families), and at which an address will be delivered by the Hon. 
William P. Sheffield, of Rhode Island, on the subject of the 
Military and Naval History of New England, a chapter of 
history in which all of us feel the deepest interest, and of 
which we all are, and may well be proud. 

The suggestion was made by our late Historiographer, 
Stephen B. Noyes, Esq., and is renewed by his successor, 
Paul L. Ford, Esq., that each member shall furnish for record 
in the books of the Society a note, stating the country from 
which his ancestors came to New England, the period of their 
arrival, the places of their residence and such other particulars 
of their history, and of the history of their descendants, as 
may be attainable. Such a record will not only be of much 
interest, but in many cases of great and lasting value. 



It appears from the Report of the Historiographer (who 
has furnished brief sketches of them), that eight members of 
the Society have died during the past year, lliey are: 



Wm. H. Taggard was born in Boston, Mass., March 3, 1S16. When 
about eight years old his father moved to New York. Mr. Taggard entered 
Columbia College at the early age of fourteen, was graduated at eighteen; 
entered Messrs. Johnson & Kent's law office, as a student at law, remained 
there three years and was then admitted as an attorney in the Supreme Court 
of the State of New York, in 1S3S. He was admitted as a counsellor in the same 
court in 1841. He practiced law in New York until his death, which occurred 
on January 8, 1885. He married, in 1841, Mary E. Seymour, daughter of Wm. 
W. Seymour, of New York. His wife died in 1872, and he never married again. 
Mr. Taggard was a profound thinker, well informed on most subjects, a keen 
reader of character, thoroughly versed in his profession, and so enlisted in 
the behalf of his clients that their interests were ever of far greater consequence 
to him than his own. He was a refined and accomplished gentleman, a man 
of sterling integrity, unusually methodical in business transactions, and in 
manners exceedingly reserved and dignified, but withal genial and kind to in- 
timate friends. 



Abel Franklin Goodnow, son of Edward and Rebecca (Beaman) Good- 
now, was born in Princeton, Mass., June i, 1S22. 

He received his education in his native town and at Phillips' Academy in 
Andover, Mass., where he was fitting for college, when interrupted by a 
severe illness, from the effects of which he never recovered, and which com- 
pelled him to relinquish all idea of college. He soon formed a business partner- 
ship with Nathaniel and Ebenezer Lamson, of Shelburne Falls, Mass., for the 
manufacture of cutlery, whose steel has since gained a reputation in this country 
under the name of Lamson, Goodnow & Co. In 1848 Mr. Goodnow came to 
New York to establish his firm in that place, taking up his residence in this 
•city. 

He married at Greenfield, Mass., December 30, 1S52, Jane, daughter of 
Cephas and Mary (Johnson) Root. 

In 1867, on account of ill health, he retired from all active business. Mr. 
Goodnow took an active part in Brooklyn affairs and was interested in many of 
our institutions and charities. He was a member of the Church of the Pilgrims. 
He died at Brooklyn, N. Y., February 17, 1885, leaving a widow and two sons, 
and was buried at Greenfield, Mass. 



Stephen Buttrick Noyes was born at Brookfield, Mass., Aug. 28, 1833, 
son of George R. Noyes and Eliza Wheeler Buttrick Noyes. He was the lineal 
descendant of a "learned minister" of the gospel, whose sons, James who had 
studied at Brazen-nose College, Oxford, and Nicholas imigrated for religion's 
sake from Choldrington, County of Wilts, England, and took passage on the 
"Elizabeth and Dorcas," arriving in New England in the month of May, 1634, 



10 

and settled in Newbury, Mass. James became the first minister of Newbury in 
1635. Nicholas, from whom Stephen B. was descended, cultivated a large farm 
"of several hundred acres of land." His wife, in 1653, was "presented for 
wearing a silk hood and scarfe," but was discharged on proof that her husband 
was worth over two hundred pounds. 

His ancestor on the mother's side was William Buttrick, who took passage 
for New England on the "Susan and Ellen," Edward Payne, Master, on the 
I2th of April, 1635. The vessel, however, did not sail till after the gth of May. 
He served the town of Concord, Mass., honorably as a sergeant, a post then of 
distinction. 

His greatgrandfather was Major John Buttrick, who commanded the 
militiamen at Concord fight, April 19th, 1775. Says Bancroft, "This is the 
world-renowned battle of Concord, more eventful than Agincourt or Blenheim." 
Stephen removed to Cambridge, Mass., in 1840, with his father who had been 
appointed Professor of Hebrew and other oriental languages in the Divinity 
School of Harvard College. He was educated at the Hopkins Classical School^ 
E. B. Whitman, Master, and entered Harvard College in 1849, was graduated in 
1853, in the same class with President Eliot and Justin Winsor. After leaving 
college he was assistant in the Boston Athenaeum, where he learned his pro- 
fession under the distinguished cataloguer and eminent theologian, Ezra Abbott. 
He went to New York, October 10, 1S55, to be a clerk with the firm of Noyes & 
Whittlesey, with whom he remained until the fall of 1857, when he returned to 
Cambridge. February 20, 1858, he again went to Brooklyn, N. Y., having 
applied for the position of librarian of the Mercantile Library Association of 
that city, which had just been organized. On March i, 1858, he was appointed 
librarian of the Mercantile Library of the City of Brooklyn. At that time the 
books of the library were kept separate from the books of the Brooklyn 
Athenaeum. He superintended the arrangement of the books and issued a 
catalogue of the library in 1858. The number of volumes in March, 1859, was 
11,400; March, i860, 14,260; March, 1865, 19,000. 

September 28, 1865, he was offered a position in the Library of Congress, 
which he declined, but on October 3, 1865, he was offered another position in 
the same library, by Mr. A. R. Spofford, which he accepted. 

His resignation as librarian of the Mercantile Library of the City of 
Brooklyn was accepted October 10, 1S65, and he soon after left for Washington. 

June 15, 1 868, he was officially informed that he had been unanimously 
chosen librarian of the Mercantile Library of the City of Brooklyn, and on 
August 31, 1868, he arrived in Brooklyn to take charge of the library. 

He was married to Sophia O. Anthony, October 20, 1S70, by whom he had 
two children, Annie Anthony, born December 4, 1871, who survives him, and 
George Holland, who died aged nine years. His wife died, and he was subse- 
quently again married, and the second wife was Miss Susan Wilson Wylie, to 
whom he was married June 14, 1882, and by whom he had a son, Sydney Buttrick 
Noyes, born March 24, 1883. Her father was James Wylie. 

Mr. Noyes, after having been for a long time confined to his home by 
Gastric fever, sailed for Florida December 20, 1884, where he died, March 8, 
1885. His remains were brought to Brooklyn and interred at Greenwood Cem- 
etery, March 15, 1885. 

He was a member of the Long Island Historical Society of Brooklyn, and 
the New England Society of Brooklyn, of which, at the time of his death, he 



II 

was the historiographer. He was also elected a corresponding member of the 
New England Historic-Genealogical Society, October 6, 185S. 

The Mercantile Library was opened to the public in May, 1858, about two 
months after Mr. Noyes was appointed librarian, with 7,000 volumes on the 
shelves. At the time of his death the number of volumes in the Brooklyn 
Library was over 80,000. In 1881 was published his " Brooklyn Library Cata- 
logue," a work which placed its compiler among the first of librarians, which 
will long be consulted by the librarian and scholar. 



Marcus P. Bestow was born at Coolville, Ohio, December 23, 1834. 

In 1853 he removed to Cincinnati, where he practised the law till the break- 
ing out of the rebellion, when he entered the army as a Lieutenant in an Ohio 
regiment, in which he served with honor till the end of the war. He was a 
brave officer, and was promoted to the rank of Brevet-Colonel for gallantry at 
the battle of Lookout Mountain. On the mustering out, in 1866, he resumed the 
practice of the law; in 1870 he removed to Brooklyn. 

In 1862 he married Anna Webb, of Winthrop, Maine, who died in 1882, by 
whom he had one daughter; and in 1884 he married Mrs. Fannie Gormon. 

He died at Coolville, July gth, 18S5. 



Rev. Willi.\ms Howe Whittemore, son of Samuel Whittemore, was born 
at Bolton, Conn., February 2, 1800, and died at Port Chester, N.Y., July 25, 
1885, in his eighty-sixth year, leaving four children. 

Losing his mother at two years of age, he lived with his grandfather Wales 
till he was six, when he went to Belchertown, Mass., attending the district 
school — which he afterwards taught — and the High School, in that place. He 
prepared for college under his pastor and the Rev. Philo Judson of Ashford, 
Conn.; entering the class of 1825, in Yale, in the sophomore year, teaching 
during the vacations, and after graduating in the High Schol in Newark, N. J. 
In 1828 he was licensed to preach; and in May, 1829, took charge of the Pres- 
byterian Church in Rye, N.Y., where, on the 22d May, 1831, he married Maria, 
second daughter of Ebenezer and Ana (Marselis) Clark. In the autumn of 
1832 he took a church in Abington, Mass.; and in August, 1S33, was installed 
in Charlton, Mass. In 1836 he was settled in Southbury, Conn., where he 
remained till 1850, when he preached for a year in Prospect, Conn., and there- 
after taught until the spring of 1864, when he acted as agent of the National 
Freedmen's Relief Association. 

In May, 1868, he came to this city to live with his daughter, uniting with 
the Church of the Pilgrims in 1870. 

At the time of his death he was the Librarian of this society. 



John B. Hutchinson, a life member of this society, was born in West 
Cambridge, Mass., in 1814, and died at his residence, 789 St. Mark's Avenue, 
Brooklyn, August 13, 1885, aged 71 years. 

When sixteen years old he entered the dry goods house of Kimball & 
Jewett, in Boston, and was admitted as a partner in 1836, till the winding up 
of their business in 1847, when he connected himself with the commission firm of 



12 

J. C. Howe & Co. of that city, of which he became a partner two years later, 
and removed to New York, prior to July, 1856, as a leading representative of 
their branch house, established there. 

In 1874 that firm was succeeded by Wendell, Hutchinson &Co., from which 
Mr. Hutchinson retired December 31, 1880. 

He was one of the original directors of the Home Insurance Co., Vice- 
President of the New York and Manhattan Real Estate Association, and prom- 
inently identified with the Home Missionary Society, Brooklyn Orphan Asylum 
and other charitable institutions, and for many years a deacon and trustee of 
Plymouth Church in this city. 



David S. B.\bcock, son of Paul Babcock, was born in Stonington, Conn., 
August 13, 1822. When sixteen years old he went to sea with his brother-in- 
law, the famous captain Nat Palmer; and at twenty-five was in command of a 
ship himself. In 1850 he married Charlotte R. Noyes, of Stonington. During 
the civil war, though offered a position on General Casey's staff, he chose to 
remain at sea, in command of a vessel chartered by the government, in which 
he carried troops to various parts of the south, notably in the Burnside expedi- 
tion of 1861-62, against Roanoke Island. He was very energetic, active and 
persevering, and received the thanks of Admiral Dupont for his skill and sea- 
manship. He commanded several other ships in the public service during the 
war, at the end of which he went to Nicaragua, where for two years he took 
charge of the Central American Transit Company. In 1867 he became Presi- 
dent of the Providence and Stonington Steamboat Co., and fn i86g, Vice- 
President of the New York, Providence and Boston, R.R. He was killed by a 
train on that road, at Stonington, Conn., Monday, August 24, 1S85. 

Captain Babcock was bold, brave, strong-minded, clear-headed, courteous, 
efficient, warm-hearted, and faithful to every friend and every duty. 



Richard H. Huntley, son of Richard H. Huntley, was born at East Lyme, 
Conn., May 6, 1821. Began his life as a sailor; married in 1844, Nancy M. Conk- 
ling of Essex, Conn., and about 1850 took up his residence inWilliamsburg, in the 
practice of the law, in which he gained distinction through his connection with 
many famous cases, chiefly in admiralty. In 1854 he represented for one term 
the Thirteenth Ward in the Common Council, being elected by the Whigs. He 
was one of the commissioners who were instrumental in having Ridgewood 
water and gas introduced into the city. He was a member of the Board of 
Education from 1875 to iSSi; and while in the Board aided largely in inaugur- 
ating the present Truant Home system. 

Mr. Huntley was a Republican, and took a great interest in politics till 
1872, when he became a Democrat, receiving a nomination for Congress in 
1876, but was defeated by Simeon B. Chittenden. He died at Lawrence, L. I., 
September 24th, 1S85, in his 65th year, leaving a widow and three daughters. 



Horace Brigham Claflin, son of John and Lydia Claflin, was born in 
Milford, Mass., December 18, 1811. He received a common school education, 
and at the age of twenty, with his brother Aaron and his brother-in-law, Samuel 



13 

Daniels, succeeded his father in business on the retirement of the latter. In 
1832 they established a store at Worcester. In 1833 Aaron took exclusively 
that at Milford, and Horace and Mr. Daniels continued in business at 
Worcester. On November 22, 183S, he married Miss Agnes Sanger, daughter of 
Col. Calvin and Anna Phipps Sanger, of Sherburn, Mass. 

In July, 1S43, the two brothers dissolved their partnership, and Mr. 
Claflin with Mr. William F. Bulkley formed an importing and jobbing house in 
New York City under the name of Bulkely & Claflin, at 46 Cedar Street. In 1S50 
they built and occupied the store 57 Broadway. In July, 185 1, on the retire- 
ment of Mr. Bulkely, the firm became Claflin, Mellen & Co. In 1853 the large 
edifice known as Trinity Building, 11 1 Broadway, was erected by Mr. Claflin 
and others, and the business of the firm was thereupon conducted there 
until 1861, when it was transferred to their immense building at the corner of 
Church and Worth streets, extending to West Broadway. In January, 1864, Mr. 
Mellen retired, and the firm name was changed to H. B. Claflin & Co., and so 
continued till Mr. Claflin's death. 

He was one of the foremost merchants of his day. The business of his 
house was vast, and "from 1865 to the time of his death far exceeded that of 
any other commercial house in the world." It was well known in every com- 
mercial mart in Europe, and had relations, through its Manchester branch, 
with India, Africa, and South America. The sales in one year during the 
Rebellion amounted to $72,000,000. In all the commercial crises and vicissi- 
tudes which occurred during his career, he bore himself boldly, bravely and 
wisely, and so deep and universal was the confidence in his rectitude of mind 
and of purpose, and of his force and judgment, that the arrangements necessary 
to carry his house through the tempests were promptly concurred in by those 
having dealings with it, and all to whom it was at any time indebted were paid 
to the uttermost farthing. Its great success enriched its members, and it 
•enjoyed to the end a most honored and enviable reputation. Mr. Claflin 
was unstintedly benevolent and generous, and his name was ever the syno- 
nym of kindness and uprightness. He was a liberal but unostentatious 
giver to the needy, and after his death a large sum from his estate was, by his 
direction, applied to charitable purposes. He was a man of great steadiness of 
mind, and amid all the cares and responsibilities of his vast business, was 
always serene and cheerful. He regarded life as a boon, was ever grateful for 
it, and seemed glad in every hour. His bright and sunny disposition shed 
cheerfulness on all about him. 

This brief notice would be very deficient were we to omit mention of his 
noble bearing when it "cost something" to business men (and to few could it 
be more expensive than to him and his house) to avow their hostility to slavery. 
When Castle Garden meetings and newspapers vied with each other in uphold- 
ing it, and assailing those who favored its abolition, Mr. Claflin expressed his 
aversion to it with "no uncertain sound," and his willingness to be enrolled 
among those who desired its overthrow. 

Mr. Claflin was one of the original trustees of Plymouth Church, in 
Brooklyn, and prominent in nearly every public institution in this city. 

He died in the 74th year of his age, at his country residence at Fordham, 
N. Y., November 14, 1S85, leaving a widow and two sons, and was buried in 
Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn. 



14 



To this sad record must be added the name of another, an honorary mem- 
ber of this society, whose history is known, and will be known of all men, so 
long as history endures. 

It is a welcome reflection that 

GENERAL GRANT 

was always a willing, as well as a welcome guest with us, that he delighted to 
be among us and within our walls. His intercourse with us, his presence at our 
festivals, and his cordial sympathy in the purposes of this society will always 
be among our most cherished memories and records. 

On motion, this report was accepted and ordered to be 
spread upon the minutes, and also to be published in the 
Annual Report. 

The terms of Messrs. Calvin E. Pratt, John Winslow, Ran- 
som H. Thomas, Charles N. Manchester and Asa W. Tenney, 
as Directors having expired, the Society proceeded to elect by 
ballot five Directors to hold office for four years. Messrs. 
Calvin E. Pratt, John Winslow, Ransom H. Thomas, Charles 
N. Manchester and Joseph E. Knapp were elected, and their 
election duly declared by the Chairman. 

On motion of Mr. Geo. H. Fisher, it was resolved that the 
historiographer be requested to obtain from the members of 
the Society sketches of their family history ; that he send to 
the members blanks to be filled out for that purpose, and that 
he keep a book of the records thus collected. 

Adjourned. 

THOMAS S. MOORE, 

Rixo 7'diiig Scc7-cfa ry. 



PROCEEDINGS AND SPEECHES 

AT THE 

SIXTH ANNUAL FESTIVAL, 



HELD 



Monday, December 21, 1885, 

In covimevioration of the Two Hundred and Sixty-fifth Anni- 
versary of the Landing of the Pilgrims. 



The Sixth Annual Festival of the New England Society in 
Brooklyn was held in the Assembly Room of the Academy 
of Music, and in the Art Room adjoining, on Monday evening, 
December 21, 1885. 

The reception was held in the Art Room, and at six o'clock 
the dinner was served. 

Three hundred and three gentlemen were seated at the 
tables. 

The President, Hon. Benj. D. Silliman, presided. 

Upon his right sat Rev. Noah Porter, D.D., LL.D., 
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, Hon. George William 
Curtis, Hon. John Winslow, Rev. William A. Snively, 
D.D., Rev. John W. Chadwick, Hon. Stewart L. Wood- 
ford, Hon. John W. Hunter. 

On the left of the President sat Hon. William P. Frye, 
Hon. William Waldorf Astor, Frank R. Lawrence, 
Esq., Hon. Calvin E. Pratt, Hon. Seth Low, Hon. 
Daniel D. Whitney, and William Sullivan, Esq. 

Grace was said by Rev. Wm. A. Snively, D.D, 



i6 









MENU. 














Oysters. 








- 


Broth Si 


Soups. 

ouveraine'. 


Green 


Turtle. 










Side Dishes. 








Olives 




Timbales Imperial. 






Celery. 


Salmon, 


Rouenaise 


fashion. 


Fish. 
Fried Smelts. 




Potatoes 


persillade. 



Joints. 
Fillet of Beef with truffles and Madeira. 
Baked Cauliflower. 

Entrees. 
Braised Capons, Chevreuse fashion. 
French Peas. 



Terrapin, Baltimore style. 



PUNCH RfiGENCE. 

Ganae. 
Canvas-back Ducks. Quails. 

Cold. 

Pate-de-foie-gras. Lettuce Salad. 

Sweets and Confectionery. 

Plum Pudding, Pilgrim fashion. 

Jelly. Charlotte Russe. Cakes. Pyramids. 

Fancy Ice Creams. 

Dessert. Fruits. Coffee. 



17 



ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE SOCIETY. 

After the various courses had been duly discussed, and 
coffee and cigars succeeded, the President of the Society,. 
Mr. SiLLiMAN, rose and said : 

Gentlcnioi : 

Delmonico, (who is doubtless a lineal descendant of the 
steward of The Mayfloivcr), has detained us by his good things 
from better things, to a late hour. I will not detain you 
longer from those better things, but will refrain from any pro- 
tracted discourse, and, following the usage of Congress, will 
" ask leave to print in the Record \N\i2i\. I now omit." {^Laughter ?^ 

I will, therefore, merely report at this time that all is well 
with our Society as to its membership, and as to its treasury 
— and that all is well with New England, save the continuance 
of her extreme humility, her extreme modesty, her extreme 

dififidence, and her extremely humble opinion of herself of 

her past, her present, and her future. [Lnitghter.'] 

Yet she continues wisely and well to educate, guide and 
govern the country, and to place her sons, and their descend- 
ants, everywhere liberally on the Bench, from the head of the 
Supreme Court of the United States to the Justices' Courts ; in 
the Legislatures, National and State ; and in the chief chairs 
of State, including both our Mayors, incumbent and elect, 
the Lieutenant-Governor, the Governor, one, or both our 
Senators, and the President of the United States— all of whom 
are of New England stock. [Applause.'] 

Moreover, she sees triumphant the great principles and 
measures of government for which she has fought in the forum 
and in the field, from the landing of the Pilgrims to this day. 
[Applaus-e.~] It is her pride and glory too, and is inscribed in 
the records of imperishable history, that those Pilgrims in the 
cabin of The Mayfloiver devised, "framed and signed the first 
compact for liberal government under equal laws, of which 
history has any record," and that the system so devised has 
been extended and adopted throughout this broad land, and 
secures liberty, safety and equal rights to all the people in 



every State in this great Union. {Applause^ And now the 
citizens of the United States, of whatever origin, are as one 
man in their devotion to this system of government. 

Again, New England has been foremost in wise and en- 
lightened reforms and improvements in jurisprudence ; and 
her legislation in this respect has been widely adopted in 
other States. 

She has, indeed, had a great mission, and well has she 
performed it. Were her political existence to end to-day, 
were her population to be superseded and supplanted by in- 
coming strangers of other races ; still her moral existence, her 
political influence and power would remain. Her children 
and their descendants — her principles, and their promulgation, 
her great enactments, and their adoption, were never more 
established, active and potential, everywhere throughout 
America, than they are to-day {Applause^ We rejoice too, 
that they now have the concurrence and vigorous support 
of our enlightened fellow-citizens of other origin than our own. 

But I must refrain from this tempting theme that we may 
listen to our distinguished guests. 

Before passing to the toasts of the evening, I would men- 
tion that a meeting of the members of the Society (and their 
families) will be held about the middle of February, at which 
an address will be delivered by the Hon. William P. Shefifield, 
of Rhode Island, on the Military and Naval History of New 
England in all our wars — a branch of history of which no peo- 
ple ever had a less boastful or more brave and honorable 
record. Miles Standish, Greene, Prescott, Ethan Allen, Stark, 
Knox, Putnam, Lincoln, Hale, Knowlton, Perry, Hull, Decatur, 
Miller, Lyon, Wadsworth, Terry, McClellan, William Tecumseh 
Sherman, Ulysses S. Grant, and a legion of other gallant sons 
and descendants of New England, were the actors, and their 
deeds on land and sea are the glories of the Republic. [Ap- 
plause"^ 

In cherishing the memory of the heroes of our own house- 
hold we are proud, too, that the history of other parts of our 
common country records the achievements of so many of 

" The few immortal names 
That were not born to die." 

{Applause:] 



19 

The President : 

Gentlemen, — We had hoped for the presence of the Presi- 
dent of the United States this evening, but in a letter 
expressing the pleasure it would otherwise have afforded him 
to be with us, Mr. Cleveland states that he is prevented by 
the pressure of official engagements and the death of the 
Vice-President. 

Let us drink to the toast of 

"THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES." 

(The toast was received and drank with applause, the whole 
audience rising.) 



TJie President : 

Gentlemen, — Another is absent whose eulogy is in all our 
hearts. 

It is a welcome reflection that 

GENERAL GRANT 

delighted to be with us at our gatherings, and none of us 
can forget the interest and pleasure his presence imparted. 
This great soldier, this great patriot, whom, not only his 
own countrymen, but all nations, vied in honoring, com- 
manded armies larger than those that Csesar led, and con- 
quered in the greatest of civil wars. His Couivicntaries will 
endure longer than those of Caesar have, and it is not the 
least wonderful of General Grant's achievements that he com- 
posed and wrote his great work while tortured by the fright- 
ful malady which ended his life, and by business troubles 
which, to him, even exceeded his bodily anguish. Such 
fortitude, such triumph of the mind — of the soul — over mortal 
agony are hardly equalled in human annals. 

When it became known that his recovery was hopeless, a 
committee of this Society expresed to him your sympathy and 
your sorrow for his suffering, in a letter (written by the Rev. 
Dr. Putnam) which I am sure you will ratify. We have reason 



20 



to believe that it was among the affectionate and consolatory- 
expressions which were most welcome to him. 

I will request Colonel Lamb to read a copy of the letter. 



Colonel Albert E. Lamb read the letter, which was as fol- 
lows : 

Brooklyn, March 31, 1885. 
General U. S. Grant. 
Dear Sir : 

The Committee who have had the honor of inviting you 
to the several Annual Festivals of the New England Society 
in the City of Brooklyn, beg, in view of the great suffering 
and trial through which you are passing, to extend to you the 
earnest expression of their heartfelt sympathy and sorrow ;. 
and they feel that they do but execute the wish and will of 
those whom they may be supposed officially to represent, when 
they assure you how deeply the sentiment is shared by all the 
members, as it is, indeed, by the whole body of their fellow- 
citizens. 

We shall ever remember, with gratitude and pride, how. 
again and again, we have been permitted to welcome you to 
our celebrations, and what signal interest your presence and 
utterances have imparted to these occasions. But especially 
shall we all, in common with the people at large, and with their 
descendants to the latest generation, cherish the profoundest 
admiration of your illustrious character and of your glorious 
deeds in the service of our country and of mankind. It was 
your own strong arm, more than any other human instrument- 
ality, that saved the nation in the hour of its direst peril, and 
posterity will never cease to acknowledge the debt. Your 
patriotism never wavered, and never was questioned. Your 
courage was as void of fear as your patience was inexhaustible. 
It was your skill and wisdom on which we all so confidently 
reposed, and in our trust we were not confounded. You were 
as calm and magnanimous in the full flush of power and 
victory, as you had been resolute and heroic in the most 
gloomy seasons of difificulty and danger. With increasing 
delight we recall your ever honest word and life, the manifold 
virtues and goodness you have so conspicuously exemplified. 



21 

and the fadeless lustre which your private and public career 
has shed upon the American name. These are an imperishable 
part of the record of the history of our Republic, and will 
swell the vast acclaim of praise and love, whose gathering 
voices from every section of the land we even now begin to 
hear. Venerated soldier of the Union and servant of Liberty, 
we thank you ; and we devoutly pray that God will abundantly 
sustain and comfort you, and that, as He has so often crowned 
you with triumph hitherto. He will, in the last conflict, when- 
ever it may come, make you Conqueror still. And we remain, 
Most respectfully and affectionately, 
Yours, 

Benj. D. Silliman, 
John Winslow, 
A. P. Putnam. 

At the close of the reading there were strong marks of 
approval by the Society. 



The Pi'csidoit : 
Gentlemen, — Let us drink 

''TO THE MEMORY OF GENERAL GRANT." 

The whole audience rose and observed the toast in solemn 
silence. 



T/ie President : 
The next toast is 

"THE DAY WE CELEBRATE." 

In response to this we will invoke the Puritan of Puritans 
— the distinguished man, whose brawny frame, and brawny 
brain, and untiring force, bespeak his race, and the land from 
which he came. Let us listen to the Reverend Henry Ward 
Beecher. 



22 

ADDRESS OF THE REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
It is a popular impression that once in a year the descend- 
ants of New England ancestors assemble to puff themselves 
up with self-laudation. [^Laiig/itcr and applause.^ And if any- 
class of people have a right to be proud of their ancestors, we 
are they. [^Applaiisc.'\ But if our ancestors were all here to-night 
in our places, whether they would be as proud of us I cannot 
say. \^LaiightcrP\ I am a New Englander of New England, 
born in Connecticut, a State in every way to be praised, not 
alone because it is easy to get out of \laiightcr\ for the 
genuine New Englander wants more room than Rhode Island 
gives him or Connecticut. The eagle can be hatched in a nest 
but he cannot fly in his nest ; he must emigrate. So I came 
away from Connecticut, from its green hills that all summer 
long coquet with the heavens, and are most beautiful, and in 
winter are as rugged and as stern as death itself. And yet, it 
is not of New England that I am going to speak to-night, but 
of the class of men who populated it originally. We hear a 
good deal about the landing of the Pilgrims. I do not know 
that I have ever heard anything much about the landing of 
the Puritans. When they landed into the country I don't 
know, but President Porter, who is a better historian than I, 
can probably tell you about that. iAppIausc.'] After they 
were once landed on our shores they began to run together, 
and now the landing of the Pilgrims and the Puritans is one 
and the same thing. But the characteristic which made the 
Pilgrim is distinct from the Puritan, though he was a Puritan. 
He was a Puritan in all that was substantial about him, but 
the Puritan had the extra Pilgrim about him. He believed in 
toleration, the Pilgrim ; the Puritan did not. The Puritan 
believed conscientiously in the non-interference of State or 
any tribunal with the rights of man. A man was large 
enough to be allowed liberty of judgment and conscience and 
action so long as that liberty did not interfere with other 
men's rights and duties. The Pilgrim though, strictly speak- 
ing, had one element, one feather in his cap extra. But the 
Puritan ! That is the name that consecrates the children of 
New England. \_Applai(Sc.'\ I am not going to speak of the 
Puritan as historic, however. He is historic, though, which 
was an accident. There were Puritans long before Europe was 



23 

civilized ; there have been Puritans long before there was any 
crusade developed in this world, and the word, although his- 
toric, has psychology in it. As I understand it, the Puritan 
was born in no place in particular, or that he settled in any 
particular country, but the Puritan is that which father and 
mother under God made him, in and of himself. It is a name 
that designates a set of men from another. And I call him to 
be a Puritan who has first predominantly in his constitution 
the moral sense ; who regards the clear line between right and 
wrong and who lives the right ; the clear line between lie and 
truth, between virtue and vice, between liberty and oppression. 
YApplcmse?^ He has the moral sense. Thousands have moral 
sense, but they are not Puritans, for the Puritan, added to this, 
had a will power to make himself the champion of the cause of 
rectitude in whatever shape, in whatever nation he lived. He 
believed in right as distinct from wrong in the moral sense, 
and he believed also that he w^as called upon to carry out the 
right and fight the wrong whatever he Avas. \Applaiisc?\ More 
than that, he had the third element that went to make the 
Puritan. Besides the moral sense of right and wrong, of will- 
power, he had the willingness to be sacrificed and to meet 
death if need be for the sake of principle [applause'] whether 
in England, Scotland, or any other place, It is that which has 
made good Puritans wherever they are to-day. \_Applaiisc\ And 
so when we come to give a definition of what constitutes the 
Puritan, you see at once how large the sphere is, and how you 
can cast aside the historic line and say of such men, they are 
Puritans, although they are not of the Puritans. There are 
everywhere throughout the world the men who believe in rec- 
titude, and who believe in making that the instrument of 
reform and correction, and of peace ; the men who refuse to be 
praised when it is due for civil supremacy or any other influ- 
ence ; men who not only believe in rectitude but who have also 
the will-power to carry out their belief, and who will morally 
do it even at the expense of having reputation lost, and even 
in the face of death itself. {Applause?^ All such men are 
Puritans. \Rcnczvcd applause.'] 

When we look abroad in our own land, who are the Pur- 
itans? The mother of the Puritans is the woman who, 
dwelling in poverty and circumscription, believes that this 



24 

side of the throne of God there is nothing so sacred for her 
child as an ennobled manhood, and who suffers poverty, 
obscurity and everything that endears life in order that she 
may, dying at last, leave in the memory of her children the 
idea of the saintship itself. {Applause?^ The obscure Puritan 
of the domestic hearth ! Then all they that have at heart the 
elevation of the whole mass of mankind. Whatever pulpit 
that believes in the gospel of humanity, and dare preach it for 
the Chinaman, for the slave, for the poor, for the oppressed, 
for the working classes ; whatever set of men who have their 
humanity broad enough to bring the whole force of the gospel 
to the elevation of those who are hungering after it, and who 
are glad to suffer a little for it — they are Puritans. 

When a man, for the sake of God, for the sake of that 
which is noblest and highest in humanity, gives himself to the 
propagation of manhood and to the elevation of mankind, 
and suffers, if it need be, the loss of property, the loss of name, 
and the loss of everything else, he knows that joy which 
is only this side of God himself. {Applausc?\ All those 
among that great army in our community who go forth to 
teach in our destitute settlements ; all those holy men who go 
preaching the Gospel at their own expense with impoverished 
table, impoverished garments, impoverished support, bearing 
and forbearing as the apostle did, knowing thirst, hunger and 
cold — every such man is a Puritan. He is seeking the welfare 
of men and their elevation at the expense of his own suffering, 
and he has the joy no banquet, no delicacy of fragrance can 
give. These banquets are all well enough, but they are like 
the smoke going up, not well spent but very savory while it is 
up. [ApplmiseJ] Every man, without regard to the section 
of the world in which he is, who has it in his heart to do the 
best for humanity without counting the cost — every such man 
I include in the brotherhood of the Puritans. There were a 
great many Puritans in Georgia ; they were ignorant but they 
meant right; and in Alabama and in the Carolinas; I think 
some in South Carolina. {Applause and laughter.'] And all the 
way through I have no doubt that there were multitudes of 
men who had to give up as no people ever had to on the face 
of the earth. When I see what the South dared and strove to 
do, and saw everything passing away from them ; their sons 



25 

slaughtered, their families, once wealthy, growing poor, every- 
thing that could make their home attractive disappearing, 
struggling and struggling on to the last, I say there is heroism 
there, when the party lines are drawn, that we ought to-day to 
celebrate. {^Applausc^ They were on the wrong side. {_Ap- 
plausc.'] They acted under false ideas, but they acted nobly 
in that sphere. [^Applause.'] 

I must express again, and in the presence of my fellow 
citizens of the North, the fact that I was born an abolitionist, 
that I fought slavery bitterly, and that I never relaxed until 
victory was assured, and now, after twenty years, I desire to 
go on record — I hope that at least will be quoted correctly 
\Jaug]itcr\ by the reporters. I am somewhat like the woman 
in the gospel, I have suffered many things and am not much 
better, but very much worse. [^Laiightcr.'] I am under very 
many obligations to the reporters however; in some things 
not so obligatory though. [^Langhtcr.~\ But I desire to say 
this, that since the human race existed the spectacle of a great 
proud people running through the different States after the 
war for reconstruction, which was begun with a courage and 
a zeal which substantially assured unity, such as we never 
presented to the world, a picture that history has never had to 
record before. [Applause and cJiccrs^ I think there are some 
Southerners out there. [Applause.'] There are Puritans of the 
South and Puritans of the North, but the Puritans of the North 
proved stronger in God's Providence, thank God. [Applause.'] 

And now every man who conducts the press and is not 
thinking of what will pay and what will please, but what will 
elevate and confirm men in virtue and in strength of purpose 
and truth — I look upon every such man as a Puritan. And if 
his paper grows slim on the subscription list, and he grows 
grim in his courage, if he holds on to the very last and seeks 
to make men high-minded and grand and finally dies in 
poverty, that man is a Puritan in the full sense of the word. 
The men who live for pleasure are very often nice fellows, but 
that is all you can say of them — they are nice. The men who 
live for mere money are not so nice. It is perfectly proper 
that both pleasure and wealth should be in the hands of the 
right man. The man who lives his life, not for the sake of 
pleasure and popularity, not for the sake of mere wealth, but 



26 

so that the pleasures and refinements of every kind, art and 
all the customs of agreeable society shall inure to the benefit 
of civilization ; men who regard gold and silver as mere levers 
to lift up the four corners of the globe — all such men are 
Puritans [app/a usr], though they may not know it. " It is a wise 
child who knows its own father " is a true saying, and it is 
applicable in this instance. There arc thousands of men who 
are Puritans, but they don't know it. Thomas, of the Army, 
was a sturdy Puritan ; Sherman was a Puritan, generation after 
generation will remember; Grant himself {CJiccrs and applaiisc\ 
was a typical Puritan. [Applause.'] Grant was himself grander 
and greater than any of his deeds. The silent, deep, wide- 
spread manhood that was in him. Silent, because no man 
ever heard him praise himself; no man ever saw him show 
any symptoms that he was elevated by his success in the 
world or by the praise that had been showered upon him. 
Grant was without any of these because God made him so ; he 
could not help himself. He was a man who believed in the 
right and hated wrong, and was willing to lay down his life for 
its sake. [Applause] 

With this brief definition of what I mean by the Puritan 
element, which is so broad and large that it includes the best 
men of every age and nation, in whose specifications I could 
easily embrace all the gentlemen who are to speak here to- 
night, allow me to withdraw by saying that the last time that 
I was present at this meeting of the New England Society of 
Brooklyn, I sat for the third time on like occasions, in New 
York and Brooklyn, by General Grant's side, and with that 
humor that was peculiar to him, knowing that being a chap- 
lain I was a captain [laugJitcr], he on rising to speak called me 
"Colonel," [applause and laughter] and said to me: "The next 
time I am at the New England Dinner with you I will make 
you General." [Applause^ When General Grant spoke 
kindly words to me I said to myself: "No man can put honor 
on me hereafter; I have reached the top of the ladder." He 
has gone from us, but his memory will be precious as long as 
the world endures; and he was a Puritan. His ancestors were 
from England or Scotland or Wales or somewhere — [A voice: 
"■ IrclandV] Oh, ah ! I think not. [Applause and laugJiter 7] 
An Irishman knows an Irishman, and I know he came from 



27 

Scotland. [Applause^ His ancestors brought with them the 
best elements of that noble people, and they brought them to 
the best people in the world, in New England. When they 
went to Ohio, his mother carried him in her loins, as the safest 
way, and he did the best he could by growing up a typical 
American and a typical Puritan. We are celebrating to-night 
"the day we celebrate" — celebrating not only the historic 
name, but we are adding testimony, admiration and pride to 
those qualities of rectitude and will and self-sacrifice that 
enable a man to make the earth better than it was when he 
came into it. I am proud, therefore, to give you that toast 
again — "The day we celebrate." 



TJie President : 
Our next toast is, 

"THE COLLEGES OF NEW ENGLAND." 

" There shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; 
the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon." 

We shall have the privilege of hearing, on this most inter- 
esting subject, the very eminent and learned President of Yale 
College. We need not assure him that for the great and 
venerable institution over which he has so long, so ably and so 
usefully presided, deep pride, interest and regard are felt by 
all whom he sees assembled here. We cannot wish for her, or 
for the country, a better result than that his successor in his 
great trust may administer it as wisely, as efficiently, and as 
well as he has done. \_AppIause.'\ 

We shall gladly hear from the Reverend President Porter. 



ADDRESS OF REV. NOAH PORTER, D.D., LL.D. 

President Porter rose and said : 

Toward the end of the war I met a man who was fresh 
from the State of Tennessee, who said that he had "bought 
himself" a few years before. Finding him specially voluble in 
certain directions, I was tempted to ask him "Can you read?" 



28 

" Give me a text and I can preach." {LaiigJitcr^ I have the 
text furnished me, but I do not propose, after the eminent 
example that has been furnished you by Brooklyn's great 
preacher, to preach from it, but only to make special applica- 
tion of it to the subject in hand, only presuming that the text 
or motto was suggested by a very instructive incident in the 
early history of New England. 

Plymouth Colony was settled in 1620, but the Puritan, as 
distinguished from the Pilgrim movement, was established 
near Boston in 1630. Eight years later — in 1638 — Harvard 
College was founded, and in 1644, six years after Harvard Col- 
lege was founded, there was a meeting of the commissioners 
of the free plantations of Massachusetts, Connecticut and 
Rhode Island ; the first great prototype of other congresses or 
conventions, such as finally culminated in the establishment of 
our Federal Union; the first example, in embryo, of what was 
to make us, after that model, so great a nation. 

There were but few members present. Very humbly, and 
in stress of danger and sorrow, they met together to consult 
for the common defense and welfare. But they were not 
unregardful of the college which six years before had been 
established in Cambridge. And at that meeting, on the 5th 
of September, 1644, a proposition for a general contribution 
for the maintenance of future scholars at the college at Cam- 
bridge, presented by Mr. Shepherd, was read and fully 
approved and agreed to. "It was commended" — I read the 
language of the resolve — "to every family which was able and 
willing to give throughout the plantation, to give yearly by 
the fourth part of a bushel of corn, or something equivalent 
thereto." In those days of feebleness and of fear, the little 
college that has just been founded and was struggling for life, 
was not forgotten, and the tax and assessment of a peck of 
corn was proposed and ordered. \Applausc?\ 

This act of theirs illustrates the side in New England char- 
acter to which Mr. Beecher has only alluded and passed by, 
and to which I therefore beg leave to call your attention. 
That side was his regard for institutions and his high appreci- 
ation of them as the condition of what most makes life 
worth living and elevates man above barbarism. 

It is commonly conceived of the Puritan, and oftentimes 



29 

charged to his discredit, that he was an individuaHst, ran to 
individuaHsm, and cared for nothing but himself; that even if 
he cared for his conscience and his God, it was only because it 
was his conscience and his God, and that there the matter 
ended. No idea can be more false or defective than this. 
The New Englander came to New England not merely to 
obtain wealth, or to assert his freedom, but to more conspicu- 
ously realize his ideal of the perfect state and the perfect 
church. For this he was ready to suffer, to struggle and to 
die. {Applause?^ 

The church in his view was more than the bishop, the state 
was greater than the king. The bishop did not make the 
church, the king did not make the state. He would never 
say of the state as Louis XIV said: "The State — it is I!" 
He would never consent that the commonwealth should be 
embodied in or identified with any living man. Had Louis 
the XIV gone across the English Channel and put that senti- 
ment into an act, his head would have gone the way of Charles 
the First's, who, in the judgment of the Puritan sought to 
realize his sentiment by act. And yet, on the other hand, 
though the New Englander never allowed the state or the 
church to be represented by an individual, he would see the 
vicegerent of God in the village constable, and the prophet of 
the Lord in the village minister. Herein was the peculiar 
glory and the distinctive element of his character. 

In order to maintain a state and church according to this 
ideal, the school was essential. And the school led to the 
college, because the New Englander knew full well that if he 
did not educate his children they could neither appreciate the 
spiritual state nor the spiritual church. And so the school, low 
and high, the village school, the intermediate school and the 
college, were all essential, not merely to propagate his private 
opinion, but to secure the successful working of his system. 
For this reason Harvard College was founded so early, in such 
feebleness, and yet with a spirit of consecration and public 
spirit, and for the same reason colleges have been planted so 
thickly and maintained so generally in New England. 

Of course it was essential to the idea of a school and a col- 
lege that the New Englander should believe in truth. You 
may talk about his superstition and narrowness of mind — and I 



30 

am willing to concede that he was narrow in theology and in 
his science, and even in his conceptions of the state — yet he 
held that truth must be established by evidence, and that so 
established it would carry conviction with it. Herein was the 
secret of all that we, in these days, call scientific or liberal 
thinking. We should not forget when we talk about our fore- 
fathers the times in which they lived. We should not forget 
that in 1626 the fathers in old England and New England had 
hardly begun to believe in the Copcrnican system. Some of 
them still questioned very much which went round the other, 
whether the sun or the earth. We forget that all our modern 
ideas of political philosophy and political economy were un- 
known, that Plymouth was settled and Harvard College was 
established seventy years before Locke's essay on the Human 
Understanding became public property. And we forget much 
more ; but we ought to remember that the colleges have been 
true to their original inspiration, however slow they have been 
to reach the conclusions we now possess ; that from the begin- 
ning to the end of their public life the New Englander has 
believed in truth as established by discussion. Hence it is 
true that the college has made New England what she is, and 
on her altars the fires of truth have been kindled and watched 
till they shot up into a glowing flame. [A/^p/a^tsc] 

There is one other aspect of the New England colleges to 
which I wish to call your attention, namely, to their influence 
upon what we call our national life. It would seem to you to 
be a very small thing that four or five eminent men should 
have spent four years as college classmates, occupied with 
the same studies and breathing and inspiring the same 
common life. Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite, Hon. Wm. 
Maxwell Evarts, Hon. Edward Pierrepoint and Hon. Samuel 
J. Tilden, were members of the class of which I was the first 
instructor, in the days of their and my own youth. [App/ause.'] 
Those gentlemen met each for four years and came to know 
each other most thoroughly as boys and youth and incipient 
men. This early college experience of every one of them, 
as they grew up in each other's sight, has been to each one 
of them something which cannot be adequately estimated 
in respect of their intellectual power, and the capacity to 
use that power for good. So has it been in the generations 



31 

before and since. Thousands and tens of thousands of 
young men have been brought in contact with each other 
over the country from sea to sea. Every year they have 
gone out in every territory you can name ; to the mining 
regions, in ranches and camps, hither and thither, and far 
away. But they never forget the ties which bound them 
together, as they were knit together when they sat around the 
common hearthstone where they spent their youth. Bonds 
like these hold a country together with a force and freshness 
that no man can estimate. They show the power of the New 
England idea that in truth believed, in conviction established, 
in personalities woven together into network that cannot be 
broken, are the true bonds of our national life; and that in 
these humble institutions though you may call them, which 
cost very little money, great results are continually achieved. 

How much does it cost to maintain a college? Not as 
much as it costs to build and maintain a ship of war. I have 
known Yale College somewhat familiarly. When I first knew 
it its permanent funds did not yield annual income enough to 
shingle its roof. Since then great additions have been made 
to its capital and its income, but nothing like what you would 
call large expenditures of money. 

These remarks are somewhat in a didactic strain, but my 
theme was a text, and you need not be surprised, therefore, if 
my remarks have been something like a sermon. \_ApplausL\'\ 



The President : 
The fifth toast is, 

''THE NORTH STATE— DIRIGO." 

Some of us can remember when there was no such State as 
Maine, bnt only a vast region — mainly of wilderness — known 
as the District of Maine, and the property of MassacJuisetts. 
Since then she has become "■ The Northern Star in the Con- 
stellation of the United States," with the proud motto 
'•'■ Dirigo,'' boldly vicing with our own ^^ Excelsior^ 

We all recollect when her regiments of giants passed 
through New York at the very outset of the Rebellion, and 



32 

we all know their fame in the battles, and the fame of the 
great men she has delegated to our national counsels. 

We have much pleasure in welcoming to this part of New 
England one of her distinguished senators, the Hon. William 
P. Frye, a lineal descendant of the first general who was com- 
missioned by the Continental Congress in the Army of the 
Revolution. 

ADDRESS OF HON. WILLIAM P. FRYE. 

Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the New England Society in 
Brooklyn : 

President Porter says, " Give me a text and I will preach a 
sermon." Now, your President, with an unbounded, over- 
flowing generosity, gave me half a dozen texts : " The 
Pilgrims and the Puritans;" "The Poets of New England;" 
"The Heroes of the Revolutionary War;" "The Heroes of 
the last Civil War ; " and I have found generally, that the 
unselfishness of presiding ofificers, on occasions of this kind, is 
like that of the horn of plenty. Luckily for you, want of time 
prevented me from accepting any of these toasts. 

If I had undertaken a polemic discourse on the Puritans 
and Pilgrims, it would have been a serious affliction to you, 
and an irritation, too, for I am a radical both in religion and 
politics. \_Applause?\ I have a profound reverence for that 
old Pilgrim householder, who, on a cold winter's Sunday, went 
to the unwarmed meeting-house on the hill, sat patiently and 
quietly through his minister's thirty-seventhly, and never 
showed a sign of satisfaction when he heard the solemn 
"Amen !/' [^Langhter.'] 

And if I had undertaken to have pictured in words the 
contrast presented by the modern worshipper it would have 
given offense. {^Langhter.'] Mr. President, I am strongly 
inclined to think that much of the boasted liberality of these 
days in religion is only a thin veneer through which the slight- 
est scratch discloses license. [Applause.'] Thad. Stevens, whom 
you all knew well, when he was in the House of Representa- 
tives, hated pretence, and despised pretenders. One day, 
when one of the latter, in his opinion, was speaking, the old 
commoner stalked out of the hall ; at the door met a friend. 



33 

and said to him, with an expletive, " The speaker is a scoun- 
drel ! " Says the friend, " You are mistaken ; very much 
mistaken. He is a very respectable gentleman ; in fact, he is a 
religious man ! " "A religious man ? " said Stevens ; " what, 
pray, is his religion ? " The friend named a popular and highly 
respected religion, whereupon Stevens said, " You call that 
religion ? Why it is nothing but the varioloid of religion ! " 
\^Laughtcr.~\ Now I am very much afraid that many professors 
of religion, and even some ministers, before they were con- 
verted were thoroughly and effectually vaccinated. \^LangJitcr^^ 

And if I had undertaken the next toast — to harmonize the 
Pilgrims and the Poets — only think of it ! The ruggedness, 
the determination, the patience, the will, the common sense, 
the plain matter-of-factedness (if I may use the word) of the 
one are hardly suggestive of the legitimacy of the other. Some 
learned teacher, I admit, in the doctrine of evolution, might 
possibly trace the kinship. I, myself, have had a dim percep- 
tion of it. This last Summer I was down on a beautiful sal- 
mon river in the Provinces and had the pleasure of meeting 
the distinguished Vice-President of this Society, my genial and 
pleasant host. I saw him return from the river one day. He 
had struck five salmon, and lost them all. His walk was 
stately, his mien was full of dignity, his face was rugged, his 
lips were set, his conversation was ;///. He looked to me just 
as I imagine some old tithing man must have looked on Sun- 
day to the mischievous boys in the gallery. I saw him the 
next day coming home, and behind him were two Indians bear- 
ing three magnificent salmon, the trophies of his skill. What a 
transformation ! His step was as light as a boy's — a hop, skip 
and a jump ; his face all gleaming with smiles ; his conversation 
full of jest and joke. Delightful companion ! Success had 
mellowed Judge Pratt! [Laiig/itcr.'\ Now it may be that the 
warm sun of prosperity, for two centuries shining down upon 
the sons of the Pilgrims and the Puritans, has mellowed them, 
too, and that the ruggedness of character of the one is now the 
gentleness of spirit of the other. 

The " Heroes of the Revolution " would not have done for 
me at all. I should have had a row with every son of Massa- 
chusetts here in less than five minutes ! In those old days 
Maine was a kind of colony to Massachusetts, and shared the 



34 

fate of all colonies — furnished the men and the money while 
the mother State seized all the glory ! \La7ig]itcr\ as in the 
War of 1 8 12 Maine endured all the suffering and Massachu- 
setts did all the growling. \_Lajighfcr.'] 

" The Heroes of the Civil War." — I was surprised when the 
President offered me that toast. I had supposed that cursed 
was to be the hand of the man that raked over the dying 
embers of civil strife. And I am reminded here to-night that 
that it ought to be cursed. I am reminded that it is thought 
well, in these piping times of peace and reconciliation, to 
say nothing of loyalty or treason. I am reminded that it is 
proper even on Memorial Day to scatter beautiful flowers on 
the graves of the Gray as well as of the Blue. \Applaiise?\ I 
am reminded that even it might be well to furl the battle flags 
our brave boys won on battle-field, and lay them away in dark, 
hidden places. I am reminded that neither in the pulpit nor 
on ,the platform is it safe to talk of the rights of citizens 
secured and sealed by the blood of our brave soldiers. {CJiccrs^ 
Mr. President, can it be that "patriot" and "traitor" are 
synonyms ? I am thankful, Mr. President, that you relieved 
me from all these, and gave me Maine for my subject. I shall 
offend no man in talking of her, because it is a well settled and 
recognized principle that it is a mean man who will not boast 
of his own. 

I love the State of Maine better than any spot in the wide, 
wide world. The farther I travel, the more I see, the better I 
love her. This may seem strange to some luxuriously fed and 
clothed and housed, son of the Empire State. But let me 
refer to what you would call the disadvantages of my native 
State, and illustrate the magnificent law of compensation. 
" Your climate is cold, your snows deep, and long continued." 
True, but our homes are warm, our firesides bright, our winter 
evenings long, our books plenty ; and the result is thoughtful, 
earnest, active, home-loving men and women. {Applause^ 

" But your soil is hard and unproductive." Yes, no poet 
with any practical knowledge of it would talk about " tickling 
it with a hoe to make it laugh with the harvest." No tickling 
process will do there, but it responds gratefully to hard work ; 
and you, sir, and I know that success attained by adequate 
achievement is that alone which is worth anything. 



35 

Did you know that Maine last year raised more wheat than 
all the rest of New England put together? Her hay crop was 
worth $15,000,000 ; and we have an agricultural county in the 
extreme north-east part of the Republic called Aroostook 
which has quadrupled in population and wealth since i860. 
They last year raised 3,000,000 bushels of potatoes — the peach 
crop of Maine. [Laughter.'] Carried 1,700,000 bushels of them 
to starch mills in their own borders, owned by themselves, and 
manufactured them into starch. It will do no harm to make a 
practical suggestion to an intelligent audience like this. There 
are a good many theorists, now-a-days — learned theorists, I 
admit, who think the millenium is Free Trade. You take the 
duty off that starch aud every one of the thirt}--two starch 
mills will cross over the border into Canada, and the 1,700,000 
bushels of potatoes will rot in the cellar. [Cheers.'] 

" But the surface of your State is rugged, hilly, mountain- 
ous." Yes, it is ; but remember that every single mountain 
has a fertile valley, and that 5,000 rivers seek the sea through 
those valleys, with currents so swift and strong that to-day 
they can carry every spindle in the United States of America. 

They are fed by 2,500 square miles of magnificent lakes. 
And let me say to my sporting friends here — and I know there 
are some — that in many of these rivers the salmon are so well 
educated that they will rise readily to a " Jock Scott " or a 
" Silver Doctor," and that in many of these lakes there are 
spotted trout that never disdain a " Brown Hackle." [Lmighter.] 

"But these rivers and lakes are ice-bound one-third of the 
year! " Yes, but 6,500 men cut it into crystal blocks, load it 
on 500 Maine vessels, and send it to every port in the United 
States; bringing back to us $2,000,000 annually. 

" But your coast is rock-bound, dangerous, tempestuous! " 
Yes, and there are 3,000 miles of it, too. A paternal govern- 
ment does not scatter dynamite down there, as it does in the 
harbor of New York ; {LaiigJiter] and yet we don't levy black- 
mail in the State of Maine on every vessel that comes in there, 
in the shape of compulsory pilotage. {Applause^ 

Again : there are every year 600 fishing vessels sailing out 
from that coast, as good a fleet of small vessels as there is 
in the world, equipped by 10,000 sailors, the most courage- 
ous and skillful in the world. And let me say to you that 



36 

the fisheries to-day of New England are the only nurseries for 
American sailors in the Republic. {Applause?^ Now ; when 
you here in New York are demanding reciprocity with Great 
Britain, so that Canada may send her fish free into your city, 
wouldn't it be well, considering the fact that you may have war 
some time or other upon the seas, and that the life of the 
Republic may depend on these very sailors, for you to say, " If 
free fish offend my brother fisherman, I will eat no more free 
fish while the world lasts! {Great laughter and applaiiseJ] 

Again : you have to-day carrying the American flag in the 
foreign trade 373 ships; 253 of them were built on that same 
coast of Maine. {Applause.'] Now, in the last war, if I may be 
permitted to mention it {Laughter and applause], I won't call 
it Rebellion, but use modern language — the War of Secession 
— {Laughter] it was absolutely necessary that we should 
blockade the longest coast over which a blockade was ever 
attempted in the history of the world, and we hadn't a dozen 
ships to do it with. Your government, in her peril, called 
on the merchant marine of the United States and the ship- 
yards of Maine, and in ample time you had 673 ships in your 
navy, your blockade was complete, no intervention came, 
and the Republic was saved ! Now, when you here in New 
York talk glibly in favor of the policy of admitting foreign- 
built ships to American registry ; when an Administration, if 
you please, or a part of an Administration, deliberately breaks 
down a man like John Roach, the leading ship-builder of 
the whole Republic, I ask you to consider whether in the 
hour of peril you may not need these same ship yards. 
[ Tremendous cheering. ] 

Again : our coast is rock-bound, I admit. But 7,000 men 
cut and hammer and chisel that rough granite into things of 
beauty to adorn every city in the Republic ; load them on 500 
more Maine vessels, and every year bring us back $1,700,000 in 
cash. 

" But you have immense forests in Maine ! " Yes, we have. 
We have one forest in the center of which you might plant 
the whole Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and then the 
entire population would be compelled to hire guides to find 
their way over the border. {Laughter.] But they are forests 
of pine, and spruce and hemlock, and 10,000 men, every year 



37 

cut the trees, haul the logs, drive them to 848 saw mills, man- 
ufacture them into lumber, load them on 600 more vessels, and 
bring home annually $7,000,000. 

Again : every island on that coast and every bay is dotted 
with beautiful summer cottages, and thousands of the wealthy 
and the fashionable of the world come down to occupy those 
cottages through the summer months, bringing to us shekels 
and good manners, and taking from us long life and good 
morals. \Gi'cat applause ^^ Said I not well that the law of 
compensation is marvellous ? 

But, after all, the best product of the State of Maine is its 
men and women. The fathers scattered the seed of patience, 
of endurance, of honesty, of faith in God, and of hope of 
a glorious immortality, and a hundred years of Indian wars, in 
which one in every twenty of our people was slain ; a ceaseless 
strife with the Earth and the Sea for the necessaries of life, 
strengthened that seed. Neither despotism, nor slavery, nor 
great wealth, nor extreme poverty, nor ease, nor luxury choked 
its growth. This Republic of ours has reaped from it a mag- 
nificent harvest and grown strong. \_ApplaiiscJ\ 

I had occasion, last summer, to ride about two hours into 
a country town, an agricultural town, without a village in it, 
to the summit of a beautiful hill, where was the old Puritan 
Meeting House and the old Puritan School-house, and where 
a gem of a library building was that day to be dedicated. I 
saw there a cradle in which one mother had rocked one 
United States Senator, one Cabinet officer, five members of 
the National House of Representatives, four Governors of 
States, two Ministers Plenipotentiary, one Major-General in 
the U. S. Army, and one Captain in the U. S. Navy. [_'' Three 
cheers for that mother .^ " ] 

She was one of our distinguished divine's (Mr. Beecher's) 
Puritan mothers. At the foot of the hill I could see a house 
in which were born a United States Senator, a Postmaster- 
General, and a member of the National House. Riding an 
hour to the east I could find the house in which were born 
two Governors of States, a Secretary of the Treasury and two 
members of the National House. An hour's ride to the west 
and I could see the house in which were born a Vice-President 
of the United States and a United States Senator, two Gov- 



38 

ernors of States, and a member of the National House. 
Standing on that hill, with a sweep of my eye I could see an 
agricultural county in which were born ten Governors of 
States, twenty-two members of the United States Senate and 
the National House of Representatives. [Applause^ 

And I have seen you men of Brooklyn, and you men of 
New York, pay tribute— and graceful tribute — to a Maine man. 
I stood in a room on Fifth Avenue two years ago and saw tens 
of thousands of your best citizens march for hours under a 
pelting rain, and their refrain was " Maine, Maine, James G. 
Blaine ! " \Trcuic)idous cheering.] He only lacked one thing 
for success ; he was not born in Maine ! \_La71ghter.'] " 'Twas 
ever thus ! " " Thou lackest one thing," has had a thousand 
applications in this life. The mother of Achilles forgot to 
baptize his heel \^Laiig]iter\ and the poor unfortunate Scandi- 
navian mother Frigga, neglected the modest mistletoe, and 
Baldaur, her son, was slain [Aside : Am I talking too long?] 

{TJic President — No, sir ! no !] 

\TJie audience — No, no ! go on ! go on !] 

What I say of Maine is equally true of all New England. 
Were you to sound the bugle of recall to-night, what a 
magnificent procession of the great, the powerful, the learned, 
the successful, would take up their line of march back to old 
New England. Why Brooklyn herself Avould mourn for her 
sons I see before me, and refuse to be comforted because 
they were not. And all the States and Territories of the great 
north would look with dismay upon the wonderful exodus 
which was taking place. 

And only think of the inspiration of New England ! 

Every great reform, every notable advance in civilization, 
every struggle for liberty, every contest for the rights of man, 
every grand educational movement, almost every concerted 
attempt to proclaim the gospel of peace in foreign lands has 
found its inspiration in New England. [^Applause.'] They say, 
some of them, carping critics, envious men, I have no sort of 
doubt, that New England is not New England now ; that by 
emigration and immigration her character has been lost. I 
know that General Butler, shortly after he reformed [LangJiter 
and applause] made a speech to a crowd of like reformers in 
Connecticut, most of them of foreign birth, and said, '' Gentle- 



39 

men, Irishmen to-day control Connecticut, and in a few years 
they will dominate all New England ! " These critics forget, 
and he forgot, that the leaven which was sufficient to leaven 
the whole lump of. this Republic has not lost its power with 
her adopted sons. I believe that Irishmen will shortly control 
Ireland \Applausc\ and I trust in God that they will have 
Home Rule. [Applausc.l^ If they do, the success of the exper- 
iment—to what extent no man dare say — may depend upon the 
inspiration of New England ; love for freedom, devotion to 
liberty and to the rights of man. \_Appl(msc\'\ Suppose we had 
no emigration nor immigration, what would New England 
have been ? Why we should all have been translated, I reckon. 
It would have been Paradise regained, without any serpent ; a 
kind of a Golden City. We could not have remained unequally 
yoked with the rest of this barbarous country, and would have 
been compelled to secede. This reminds me of a story. There 
were two Irishmen — and Irishmen do not love negroes — who 
had heard of Fred. Douglass, and that he was going to lecture 
upon slavery, a subject upon which he is always eloquent, and 
they determined to lay aside their prejudice and hear him. 
They listened to his speech ; were carried away completely by 
it. Coming down the aisle one says to the other, *' Tom, that 
was magnificent!" Says Tom, "Well, what of that? He is 
only half a naygur!" "Half a naygur!" says the other 
" Well, Howly Moses ! what would he have done then if he had 
been a whole naygur ? " \Grcat applause.'] But I weary your 
patience. [" Go on ! Go on ! ] Well, then, I will close with a 
kind of a benediction. Sons of New England, speak not, 
think not lightly of the religion of the fathers ! Let no taunt 
of bigotry make you forgetful of their sublime faith in 
Almighty God and their bright hopes of a blessed immortality. 
Emulate their virtues, rather. Strive to be their equal in 
devotion to human rights, in fidelity to liberty, and, in the 
words of Lincoln, " This nation shall have a new birth of 
freedom. That government of the people, by the people, for 
the people, shall not perish from the earth ! " \_Great and 
prolonged cJieeri)ig, ending ivith " three cheers and a tiger."] 



40 

TJic President: 

Gentlemen, — Our next toast is, 

"THE INFLUENCE OF AMERICA IN EUROPE." 

The years are few in which America has actively influenced 
Europe, Some of us who are here to-night can remember 
Tvnen the head-lines in the newspapers usually announced, 
"Thirty days later from Europe," "Forty days later from 
Europe," and one person now present recollects the annuncia- 
tion of an interval very much longer than either of those 
named. Steam was not, then. Then knowledge and thought 
of us were mainly limited to the few on the other side the sea, 
who had commercial dealings with us ; and most of the rest 
thought and knew, and cared as little of, or for, us as we do of 
or for Australia, Chili or Peru. 

All is changed. Now, thought on the two sides of the sea 
is simultaneous, and American opinion, action and example 
simultaneously and potentially influence Europe. We are 
happy in the opportunity of listening on this subject to the 
views of the accomplished statesman who recently represented 
our country at the Court of Italy, and whose study and obser- 
vations have given him large information, and well-considered 
opinions on the subject. We welcome the Hon. William W. 
Astor. 



SPEECH OF EX-MINISTER WILLIAM W. ASTOR. 

I thank you, Mr. President and gentlemen, for the kindness 
of your welcome and for the honor to which you have bidden 
me, which I shall always remember with gratification. I am 
asked to say something as to the influence of our country in 
Europe, by which I understand the force of the example of the 
self-ruling American people. Our government wisely adheres to 
the old-time principle of non-intervention in the affairs of other 
nations. Our diplomatic agents abroad have no share in the 
mazes of European politics. We have no alliances and we do 
not rank among the belligerent powers. But since the close of 
our civil war we have presented to foreign eyes the spectacle of 



41 

a vast community that, having passed safely and victoriously 
through a tremendous convulsion, dismisses its armed forces 
and sets about governing itself in an orderly equitable way, 
year by year increasing in education, in prosperity and in 
happiness, while qualifying for its larger destiny upon this 
continent. We exhibit to the world a self discipline, a love of 
intellectual attainment and an energy in upright purpose 
which remain with us as a reflex of the earnest, simple-hearted 
Puritan spirit of old. Of the country where it was my privi- 
lege to represent the United States — of Italy — I will say that 
there a real interest and sympathy are felt in our progressive 
character, in our practical abilities, in the liberal yet con- 
servative working of our institutions. Italy is at once the 
oldest and the youngest of the European states, and in this 
present day of her regeneration she turns not infrequently for 
inspiration and impulse to the civilization of free America. 



TJie President: 

Gentlemen, — Fill your glasses to the seventh toast, 

''THE OLDER AND THE LATER NEW ENGLAND 
—NOBLE SIRES AND WORTHY SONS." 

Of this theme we never tire, and no one ever tires of hear- 
ing, on any theme, the voice of the eloquent gentleman on 
whom we will call to commend the past, and, we trust, the 
present of New England. 



SPEECH OF HON. GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 

This is the day of the Mayflower; and it seems to me that 
I have never seen it in finer bloom than it is at this moment 
in this room. We have already perceived that its perfume is 
wit, wisdom and eloquence. We know of old that conviction, 
courage and constancy are its imperishable seed, and wherever 
to-day from the Bay of Fundy to the Golden Gate, from the 
home of Senator Frye to New Orleans on the Gulf, in a 



42 

renewed faith and a brighter hope of American Hberty, of 
American union and of American patriotism, the Mayflower 
blooms again and makes glorious summer of the winter day. 
I think that the hardy quality of that plant is shown by noth- 
ing more than this; that every year it puts itself forth with 
marvelous temerity in the very face of our excellent brethren 
the worthy children of the old Knickerbockers, among whom 
we find ourselves at this moment, and we must confess, as 
good Yankees, that although we thrust our Mayflower in their 
face, that face is still undaunted, and their cheek is always 
equal to emergency. If our eloquent and intrepid friend, Mr. 
Chauncey Depew, were at this moment at this table, he would 
again prove to you, as with resistless urbanity he proves once 
a year, that whatever the Yankee may have done, the Dutch- 
man did it a great deal better, and a great while before ; that 
the Yankee is, after all, a kind of second-rate Dutchman ; and 
that the decline and fall of New York began with the transfer 
of the Province to the old English Crown, but was not fully 
completed until the arrival of the New England Yankee. 

But whatever the opinion of the Dutchman may be of the 
Yankee, this dinner of Brooklyn Pilgrims on the anniversary 
of the day on which Bradford and his comradas passed over 
from Clark's Island and made the first landing upon Plymouth 
soil, and the dinner of our brethren, the New York Pilgrims, 
to-morrow night, on the anniversary of the day on which there 
was not a Pilgrim within thirty miles of Plymouth Rock — 
both show at least the Yankee's just estimate of himself. He 
is so vast, so important a personage in American history that 
he naturally supposes that it took him two days to come 
ashore, and with perfect propriety he devotes two consecutive 
dinners to celebrating that event. Certainly two days were 
not a long time for that transaction, for in the persons of 
Carver and Bradford and Brewster and Winslow, political 
liberty, religious liberty, personal liberty, and the American 
Republic came ashore. Yet all these good angels were very 
closely veiled. They were all wrapped in the cloak of old 
prejudice, and their faces were hidden in narrow, ecclesiastical 
veils and hoods, so that their full beauty was not seen ; but all 
the eager, hungry years since have been tearing cloak and veil 
and hood away, until we to-night see those men as they truly 



43 

were — Angels of the Annunciation — harbingers of the good 
time coming. In the benignant and catholic Channing we see 
what was hidden in Brewster. Our Governor Andrew, was 
Governor Bradford fully grown. Worthy sons and noble 
sires ! Those were the men who made the older New 
England ; these the men who have reproduced it in the later 
day. 

I was talking, not very long since, with a distinguished 
citizen of New York, who, like his eminent predecessors in the 
chair of its highest magistracy, Cadwallader, Golden and the 
later DeWitt Clinton, has done much to stimulate the local 
pride of this State, and he said to me that it was the good 
fortune of New England always to have had the good sense 
to take good care of the good name of its famous men, and of 
its famous places. I replied that it was the good fortune of 
New England always to have had great men and places 
famous by their association reverentially and honorably to 
care for. There is one spot which especially illustrates this 
truth. There is Fanueil Hall in Boston, one of the most 
famous spots in New England, or upon this continent. Rufus 
Choate said of Fanueil Hall, that it breathes and burns of 
Webster. So it docs, but not of him alone. The story of 
Fanueil Hall is like the Milky Way — -studded with stars, arch- 
ing our history with light. The story of Fanueil Hall, from 
Sam Adams to Wendell Phillips, is a long line of unbroken 
light, and our end is as lustrous as the other. There are three 
generations — Adams, Webster, Phillips — independence, union, 
liberty. Noble sires and worthy sons. Or, let me take an- 
other illustration. I went, three months ago, to the old town 
of Concord, in Massachusetts, which then celebrated the 250th 
anniversary of its foundation. Concord of Concord Bridge; 
Concord of the 19th of April; Concord of the Provincial Con- 
gress ; Concord the neighbor of Lexington ; the Concord 
also of Emerson, of Hawthorn, of Henry Thoreau. That 
ancient town has erected memorial stones at all its famous 
spots. On the sight of the hut of the Sachem from whom the 
land for the town was peaceably bought ; the site of Peter 
Buckley's house, the first settler and pastor; the site of the 
first church, and of the first school; the farm on which the 
Revolutionary stores were hidden ; the field in which the 



44 

minute-men gathered ; corner where the farmers of Middlesex 

fell with withering fire upon Britons retreating from the 

bridge ; and all these memorials of patriotism, of courage, of 

constancy, of devotion, clustered near and far, like his moons 

about Jupiter, around the statute of the minute man which 

stands upon the very spot where American freemen obeyed 

the first command to fire upon the British troops; a statue of 

noble imaginative power; a figure of the old New England 

farmer, but the figure also of the young Pilgrim grown into 

Young America. 

I never knew a town so proud as Concord. I never knew 

a town with better cause for pride. But that cause was not in 

the older New England alone ; it was also in the later day. I 

do not see why the foot of the traveller should be drawn to 

Boccaccio's Garden in Italy, or to the English haunts of Isaak 

Walton, or to Gilbert White's Sellborne with a finer charm 

than attracts them to Hawthorne's Old Manse, or to Henry 

Thoreau's Walden. The heart of the traveller has thrilled 

with grateful admiration and heroism of the Concord farmers 

at the bridge, triumphantly maintaining and asserting political 

independence and political liberty, bends in reverence before 

the equal heroism of the scholar at the other end of the vil- 

age as triumphantly maintaining and asserting, in the power 

and genius of Waldo Emerson, intellectual and moral liberty 

and independence. His own words are the motto of this hour 

and of every meeting of New Englanders to commemorate 

their ancestors : 

" So nigh is grandeur to our dust, 
So near is God to man, 
When duty whispers, lo! thou must. 
The youth replies, I can." 

That was always the reply of the Puritan. When duty 
summoned the fathers from England to Holland, they said, 
" We can." When the same duty beckoned the young Pilgrim 
across the bleak ocean to a savage wilderness to meet expos- 
ure, sickness, death — the Pilgrim of 260 years to whom life 
and love and this warm world were quite as dear as they are to 
our children — the youth replied, " I can." 

We are told that New England has lost the secret of 
power, that the later New England belies the old ; but upon 



45 

every great event in this country, every forward movement in 
every department of human activity and interest, from the 
landing of the Pilgrims to this day, New England has marched 
in the van. From the first campaign against the Indians to 
our own terrible Civil War ; from the earliest federation of 
New England States to the reconstruction of constitutional 
government ; from Jonathan Mayhew's morning gun of the 
Revolution to William Lloyd Garrison's anserwing shot, " I 
will not hesitate ; I will not equivocate ; I will not retreat a 
single inch ;" from Nathan Dane's Northwest ordinance to 
Thomas Allen's Jencke's Civil Service Reform bill (for no more 
was Nathan Dane the father of freedom in the North-west than 
is Jenckesof Rhode Island the father of Civil Service Reform); 
from William Bradford, the earliest historian, to Bancroft and 
Prescott and Motley and Parkham and Palfrey of to-day; 
from the old Day Psalm Book and Ann Bradstreet, the first 
notes of New England song, to Whittier, and Holmes and 
Lowell, the living chiefs of our poetry •,||rom Eli Whitney's 
cotton gin to Bell's telephone ; from Dr. Franklin's lightning- 
rod to the sewing machine, and to Dr. Jackson's anesthesia; 
from the gray-haired Brewster preaching upon Plymouth Rock, 
to the gray-haired Beecher preaching upon Brooklyn Heights, 
in every movement which is forward, charitable, religious, 
scientific, inventive, political — in every movement leading to a 
wider independence, to greater liberty— old New England 
and the new New England has written its name, lar^e and at 
the head, as the New Englander John Hancock wrote his 
name on the Declaration of Independence. Mr. President, 
the Golden Age is not behind us. The men of Plutarch, the 
men and women of Shakespeare, are the men and women that 
we know and have known. It is like the dawn, which seems to 
be in the East ; but the golden light of the morning is around 
us. 

Philip Sidney did not die three hundred years ago in Flan- 
ders; we saw him how often in the high resolve and heroic sac- 
rifice of our younger brothers in the war. We did not know 
Washington but we knew Abraham Lincoln, and when the ear 
heard him then it blessed him, and when the eye saw him it 
gave witness to him, because he delivered the poor that cried, 
and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him. We 



46 

read of Miltiades, whose laurels would not let Themistocles 
sleep. They seem to us men beyond our world ; heroes of a 
nobler port than ours, whose figures are already faint and van- 
ishing in antiquity. But just now Grant was here, whose 
peace of mind no renown of others could disturb ; the glory of 
whose triumph was magnanimity and fraternal union ; in 
whose victorious hands liberty was as in those of Washington 
and by whose bier his generous foes walked, sorrowing. The 
sires were noble, sir, but the sons are worthy. Noblesse oblige. 
We can be as good as our fathers only by being better ; and as 
we, like them, reach forward to the things that are before, we 
may be very sure that we shall grasp them, only by the faith 
of Brewster, the constancy of Winslow, the courage of Stan- 
dish, the rectitude of John Winthrop, the zeal of John Daven- 
port and, above all, by the unquailing trust in soul liberty of 
Rocfer Williams. 



The President: 

We come now to the eighth regular toast, 

"THE MAYFLOWER AND HER EVOLUTIONARY 
SUCCESSOR, THE YACHT PURITAN." 

In a goodly tract, which I saw some years ago, was an 
elaborate wood-cut representing the embarkation of the Pil- 
grims on the Mayfiozver, in the harbor of Delft, on their voyage 
to Plymouth, in 1620. Prominent in the same picture was 
a large side-wheel steamboat, puffing steam, the black smoke 
pouring from the smoke-stack, and tearing the water with her 
paddles. But it was not generally suspected until the recent 
appearance of the yacht Puritan that her predecessor, TJie 
Mayfloiver, was a fast sailing clipper; that she had gaff-topsails, 
spinnakers, a balloon-jib, centre board, or forty tons of lead on 
her keel (though such endowments were not more remarkable 
than her contemporary steamboat) ; whatever was known on 
the subject was a secret of Tlie Anicriean Yaeht Club and 



47 



was utilized by them in the late race between the Puritan and 
the Gcncsta, Avith results of which we are all proud. 

Perhaps the honored amateur admiral, now present, will 
confirm this view of the case ? We shall all be glad to hear 
from Frank R. Lawrence, Esq. 



SPEECH OF FRANK R. LAWRE^XE, ESQ. 

It is well that you do not call upon a sailor to respond 
to this sentiment. The discovery of a connection between 
the ship " Mayflower " and the yacht '' Puritan," reminds 
one of the story of the naturalist, who described the crab 
as being a fish, red in color, and which moved backward : 
to which a critic replied that this description was quite 
accurate, except that the crab is not a fish, is not red in color, 
and does not move backward. Still, if the New England 
Society in the city of Brooklyn has determined that the 
"Puritan" was evolved from the "Mayflower," it will never 
do for those of us who live in that part of Brooklyn which lies 
on the other side of the Bridge to come over here and ques- 
tion the statement. We are to imagine a swift and shapely 
boat, handsome and bright, knowing neither trouble nor toil, 
freighted " with youth on the prow and pleasure at the helm," 
evolved, as the product of time, from a vessel, heavy and 
slow, laden with gloomy, fanatical men, borne down with 
memories of persecution, and hate and recent suffering, leaving 
their native land to go out into the wilderness and lay the 
foundation of a new race of people. Little in common do we 
see between the two vessels. The yachtsman of to-day goes 
forth, if he pleases, commissioned by an officer of the National 
Government, under the authority of an act of Congress, "to 
sail for pleasure," and for nothing else. Think how the Pil- 
grim Fathers would have regarded the idea ? They never did 
anything for pleasure ! The punishment of witches, the duck- 
ing of common scolds, the whipping of people that had the 
smallpox, and similar pastimes in which their souls took grave 
delight, were all done, not as matters of pleasure, but from 
stern convictions of duty, and in accordance with the customs 
of the age. If a modern New England yachtsman, sailing for 



48 

pleasure, should be cast upon some rocky coast in an unknown 
region beyond Cape Cod and Marblehead, and could, by any 
chance, fall into the hands of some grim, forgotten remnant of 
his Puritan ancestors, they would pounce upon him, one and 
all, constables and selectmen and catch-poles and elders, and 
would make it plain to him that an idle life is not a thing to 
be encouraged. There were some voyagers who sailed for 
pleasure, even in the old Puritan days. Captain Kidd was a 
conspicuous example, but, owing to annoyances to which they 
were persistently subjected, this type of yachtsmen have van- 
ished from our coasts. Time, in its progress, works mighty 
changes. The hardy Pilgrims who landed from the " May- 
flower " in 1620 peopled the wilderness and overcame its 
savages. The colonies they founded flourished and extended, 
and a hundred and fifty years later their valiant descendants 
began at Lexington and Bunker Hill the greatest struggle for 
human freedom recorded in history. Still another century has 
gone by. Among the descendants of the Puritans there has 
grown up, through the natural increase of riches, a class of men 
no longer obliged to struggle for subsistence, and who turn their 
attention to matters of less pressing need. Refined, though 
not enfeebled, through contact Avith luxury and the possession 
of wealth ; with the old fiery spirit as keenly alive in them as 
in their forefathers ; when a stranger sent out a challenge to a 
contest for yachting supremacy, who, of all the races repre- 
sented in our people, might so fittingly respond to the sum- 
mons, and build and man a vessel to dispute the victory, as the 
latest descendants of the Puritan colonists who came over in 
the " Mayflower ? " The stranger was of gentle birth, and 
proved a valiant and a worthy foe. When the two yachts 
sailed forth side by side, each disdaining all aid from steam or 
machinery, or any modern appliance, and as perfectly de- 
pendent as the " Mayflower " herself, upon the strength of 
wood and iron, the favoring breezes, and the stout hearts of 
their intrepid crews, victory seemed evenly suspended in the 
balance. The result we all know. The yacht " Puritan " 
proved worthy to be the successor of her great ancestress. 
New England triumphed over Old England in this friendly 
struggle, and at the close of the last race, when the " Puritan " 
became the winner, could the old Pilgrims have been present 



49 

at the scene — Bradford and Winthrop, the sturdy Miles Stan- 
dish and the youthful John Alden — may we not believe that 
they would for a moment have emerged from their habitual 
gloom, flung their antediluvian head-gear high in air, and made 
the welkin ring, with plaudits for the victor ! And the win- 
some " Priscilla," had she also been there, would she not have 
forgiven the exclusion of her namesake from the race and 
joined in the applause as heartily as the rest ? Mr. President, 
in the popular eye, the yachtsman figures as a mere idler — 
one of " the gay motes that people the sunbeam." Yet, in 
his favorite sport, he must be manly and vigorous and encoun- 
ter many dangers. He is among the first to test and demon- 
strate the value of every improvement in marine architecture. 
His life is freedom itself. If you ask him where he is going, he 
will tell you, " I am going where the wind blows me." Thus, 
free from care, is he from day to day. In the victories of the 
*' Puritan " over the " Genesta," and in similar events, we see 
not merely a triumph of one pleasure boat over another. In 
the emulation they excite and in the attention they attract, 
such contests go far to keep alive that spirit of conquest and 
adventure animated by which sailors have explored and peo- 
pled the globe. Upon that spirit we must depend in the 
future to acquire that maritime supremacy which, with thous- 
ands of miles of sea coast, and countless thousands of men 
imbued with a sailor's daring, is rightfully ours. In the 
" Puritan " to-day survives the spirit of the " Mayflower" two 
centuries and a half ago. The cirumstances, indeed, are 
greatly changed. The characteristics are essentially the same. 



T/ic President : 

We can all testify that, as to municipal matters, the citi- 
zens of Brooklyn rest in peace. They are disturbed by no 
fears of incompetency, timidity or dishonesty in the conduct 
of our city government, for intelligence, courage, energy and 
integrity are at the head, and in the subordinate officers and 
ranks of the officials. The Mayor who has for four years past 
presided with such great distinction is about to retire, and we 
count on a continuation of good government by the gentle- 



50 

man who is elected to succeed him. In deference to the 
" early hours " to which that gentleman is addicted, we will 
invert the order of the two next toasts and call on him for a 
response as to 

"THE FUTURE OF BROOKLYN." 

I need not introduce to the Society the Mayor-elect, the 
Hon. Daniel D. Whitney. 



ADDRESS OF HON. DANIEL D. WHITNEY. 

I am glad I am here to-night for several reasons, the first 
of which is for this sumptuous repast to which we have been 
invited and with which ^\■e have regaled ourselves. Then there 
are so many kind friends here, I find, with whom I am person- 
sonally acquainted and many others whom I have known 
favorably by reputation. All of you are so kind to me 
that it makes this occasion one of great pleasure. I thank 
you for this cordial greeting. I am asked to speak of Brook- 
lyn. To speak of Brooklyn as she deserves, requires a more 
eloquent tongue than I possess, and yet, having received so 
many kindnesses from the people of Brooklyn, it would be 
ungenerous on my part not to say a kind word of the city we 
all love so well. You must remember that I am an embryo 
]\Iayor. I am not full grown yet, I am under age to-night, 
but I am very glad that we have one with us this evening who 
is full grown, and who is perfectly qualified to represent 
Brooklyn as she deserves. It would be ungenerous of me not 
to say something for Brooklyn, however feeble it may be. 
There are so many things that I might say. But I will leave 
that for another who can do that better than I. Yet I might 
point to-night with a great deal of pride and satisfaction and 
pleasure to our long streets and beautiful avenues, our park- 
ways, our drives, our boulevards, and our parks and our 
schools, and colleges, and seminaries of learning, and then I 
could speak of the charitable institutions ; the water rushing 
through our streets and into our houses — all these are sources 
of pleasure and gratification, all of which my successor, who 



51 

will follow me, can speak better upon than I can. I have only 
to say, in passing, one thing. In all my wanderings around this 
world of care, in all my observations, I think there is one thing 
certain, that there is not another city in the United States — 
no, not in the world — of the same number of inhabitants that 
Brooklyn contains, where there is so little of ignorance, pov- 
erty and suffering as there is in the City of Brooklyn. And 
now, if this is so, I think it is correct to ask the question, 
Why is this thus ? I think I can solve the problem : It is 
because there are so many people in Brooklyn who are 
descendants of New England stock. Gentlemen, I do not 
propose to detain you to-night any longer. I will give way 
to a full-fledged Mayor — a Mayor de facto, who has ruled so 
well for these last four years. 



TJic President : 

And now may we have the Valedictory from our honored 
friend, the retiring Mayor, as to 

"THE CITY OF BROOKLYN," 
the Hon. Seth Low. 

ADDRESS OF MAYOR LOW. 

Mr. President, and Goitlenien of the New England Society: 

Four years ago a young and untried man upon whom 
Brooklyn had laid a very great honor, and a very great bur- 
den, stood up in your presence to bespeak for himself your 
help, and the help of all good citizens, in the discharge of the 
duties of the office to which he had been called. To-night, a 
little older, and a little stouter, perhaps, as becomes a man 
who has companied for four years with our City Fathers, I 
am here to thank you and all the people of Brooklyn for the 
willing help you have given to me during all this period. No 
man has ever sat in the Mayor's chair of Brooklyn, I am sure, 
and I venture to think few officials anywhere, have been able 



52 

to approach the end of their official terms with so deep a sense 
of obligation to the whole community for the support accorded 
to them in the discharge of their official duties. First of all, 
the press of the city, with a most unusual degree of unanim- 
ity, supported me in almost every public measure. The 
instances of difference have been rare at the most, and hardly 
more frequent, perhaps, than was necessary to establish on 
the one hand the infallibility of the press, and on the other 
the indpendence of the Mayor. 

In this ackowledgement of my obligation to the press I 
wish especially to recognize the City Hall staff of our Brook- 
lyn papers. In a position to give to every item a color accord- 
ing to their desire, they have treated me with conspicuous 
fairness, and merit at my hands the warmest thanks. Beyond 
this, a quite unusual number of men unaccustomed to giving 
their time to civic matters, have cheerfully undertaken the 
duties and responsibilities of public office during these years, 
thereby not only placing me under great obligations to them, 
but enlarging most helpfully, as I conceive, the circle of peo- 
ple among whom something like accurate knowledge of the 
city's affairs is to be found. Again, during both of my terms, 
it has been my great good fortune to be associated with 
officials, in every department of the city government, with 
whom I could work most cordially. The Board of Aldermen 
and the Mayor have been at loggerheads at no time. In only 
two instances has the Board pressed its views on any resolu- 
tion to the point of overriding a veto, and the chances are 
that, at least as often as this, the Mayor's office was in the 
wrong. This acknowledgment seems to me to be especially 
due to the Board of Aldermen, because, for the last two years,. 
at all events, there has been no time when, if a division had 
been made upon party lines, every veto might not have been 
set aside. But what is of more importance to the city than 
this negative support, is the positive co-operation which the 
Board has given me in every endeavor to forward the interests 
of the city. The increase of the water supply, the procure- 
ment of new water rights, the enlargement of the police force, 
the enlargement of the fire defences of the city — all would 
have been impossible except for its active co-operation. Even 
the Legislature has so far consulted the judgment of Brooklyn's 



53 

officials during this period, that absolutely no law has been 
placed upon the statute books in the whole four years which 
has been seriously objected to here, and, what is more to the 
point, every law that was desired, with the exception, perhaps, 
of three, has been enacted, thereby enabling the city in the 
first instance to prepare itself for the passage of the constitu- 
tional amendment limiting its debt, and thereafter to conform 
its methods to that amendment, beside making possible the 
solution of the arrears problem. In this connection, and while 
I am still Mayor, I desire to bear my testimony to the services 
of Senator Daggett to Brooklyn during the last two years. 
Not only did he forward every local measure which met with 
my approval, and prevent the passage of many bad bills, but 
at the closing session of the last Legislature, he defeated a bill 
under circumstances entitling him to the gratitude of every 
fair-minded citizen of Brooklyn. The bill proposed to place 
the jurisdiction of the Concourse lands belonging to the 
county under the Town of Gravesend. It was urged by some 
of his most conspicuous friends, and he knew when he took 
the stand he did that it was not at all improbable that their 
displeasure would be visited upon him, without his securing, 
on the other hand, the recognition of those on whose behalf 
he spoke ; but, with a courage equal to the situation, he threw 
himself into the breach, and by so doing, prevented this most 
disastrous bill from passing the Legislature. I am aware that 
it might be a more popular thing in some quarters if I were to 
say less upon this head, but I do not know how the public is 
to expect faithful service from men if no recognition is made 
of it when it is rendered under difficult circumstances. Of 
those who have been especially associated with me in the 
administration of the city government through the occupation 
of places to which they have been appointed by the Mayor, it 
is not necessary that I should speak in detail. As a whole, 
they have served the city well, and have fully justified the 
confidence reposed in them. One thing may be said, however, 
that the city government has been fully equal, not only to the 
performance of the ordinary duties of administration, but also 
to coping with very unusual problems. It has not been neces- 
sary to create new agencies for the carrying on of the city's 
work. The arrears problem has been solved by the Board of 



54 

Assessors, acting in a judicial capacity, in lieu of a separate 
commission, and it is to be stated to their credit that the work 
was actually completed in a year and a half, although it 
involved the passing upon the condition of nearly 30,000 sep- 
arate parcels of property. In the City Works Department the 
whole duty of securing the land and water rights needed for 
the extension of the water works has been performed with no 
other increase of its force than the necessary personnel to 
attend to the added labor. In this way it seems to me that 
Brooklyn has not only escaped the expense of an aqueduct 
commission, but has also made more rapid and ef^cient pro- 
gress toward the end in view. In the main, the heads of 
departments have received at the hands of the public due 
recognition of their services, but in one instance I cannot but 
think that criticism has been indulged in out of proportion to 
the praise which is really due. It ought to be said of Commis- 
sioner Fleeman, that to him alone among the city of^cials so 
far as I am aware, is due the creation of the Wallabout 
Market, while, at the same time the successful and ample pre- 
parations which have been made for the extension of the 
water supply have received his cordial and intelligent support 
at all times. I do not mean to say the criticism which has 
been made upon him has been in no case justified. To say 
that would be to rob my judgment of all it is worth. But I do 
feel that his services, in the hurry of passing events, have not 
always received the recognition to which they are justly enti- 
tled. It has been inevitable, under the peculiar features of 
Brooklyn's charter, whereby the Mayor is made the responsible 
head of t,he city government, that much of the praise really 
belonging to subordinates and to co-operating officials has 
been bestowed upon the Mayor. If I have seemed at any 
time to accept such utterances without remonstrance it has 
been because the Mayor is inevitably the representative 
for the time being of the administration of the city. I beg 
you to believe that I have not appropriated to myself person- 
ally all the kind utterances of good will and appreciation 
which have been made with reference to the administration as 
a whole. And now, gentlemen, I am approaching the end. I 
had thought to outline in a few words the position of the city 
to-day with reference to some of its large interests as compared 



55 

with its position four years ago when I entered upon the 
duties of my office ; but my tongue refuses to engage itself 
with such themes any longer. 

Among the greatest sources of the pleasure with which I 
return to private life is this, that the necessity will no longer 
exist for me to enlarge upon what has been accomplished in 
these years. I leave that theme cheerfully, and I may add 
fearlessly, to others. 

In thanking you once more for the help that you have 
given to me, and through you the whole people of the city, 
I desire to bespeak for my successor, the same cordial support. 
It is impossible for any man to administer the affairs of the 
city to the best advantage unless the tone of public sentiment 
is such as to give him a fair chance. Beside this, he must 
have, as he asks for it, the active and cordial co-operation of 
those who desire for our city good things. It gives me pleas- 
ure to assure him in this presence, as I have already done per- 
sonally, that the obligation under which Brooklyn has laid me, 
by the honors conferred upon me, shall be repaid to him 
as Brooklyn's Mayor to the full extent of my power as a pri- 
vate citizen. Four years of work for Brooklyn on my part now 
are almost closed. This much I may claim for myself : that 
with singleness of purpose, and with all the ability I have, I 
have served the city in season and out of season, as I have seen 
its interests from day to day. Personally, I go out of ofifice as 
I went into it, with "malice toward none, with charity for all." 
But it is impossible that in the four years of active life I can 
have avoided all cause of offense to others. I would be glad 
if the personal antagonisms and differences of my life as 
Mayor, might perish with it. I would ask of all that it may 
be so, from the humble citizen of Brooklyn, who in a moment 
of petulance or impatience has failed to receive the attention 
at the hands of the Mayor, which was his due, to the great 
engineer of the bridge of which all are justly proud, toward 
whom the exigencies of the situation, as I saw the duties of 
the hour, devolved upon me a most difficult and delicate duty. 

Gentlemen, once more I thank you and all my fellow citi- 
zens. 



56 

The President : 

New England is not alone a land of toil and prose. Whit- 
tier and Halleck and Bryant and Longfellow, have made her 
sterile soil and mountains and rugged rocks, a land of song as 
well — and another of her poets will describe to us to-night, 

''THE PILGRIM WAY." 

We shall have the satisfaction of hearing the Rev. John W. 
Chadwick. 



SPEECH OF REV. JOHN W. CHADWICK. 

Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the Nezv England Society: 

I was present at a pleasant rural festival not long ago, at 
which one of the speakers told an affecting story of a good 
woman, who was drawing near to death in Ashfield, Mass., 
where Mr. Curtis spends his summers, " far from the madding 
crowd's ignoble strife." At some time in her life she had lived 
in Montana, and she now endeavored to extort a promise from 
her husband that she should be buried there. But he, aware 
that the expense of such a journey would be great, 

" For even when on pleasure bent, 
He had a frugal mind," 

made some objection. Whereupon she protested, that if she 
were not buried in Montana, she should not lie quietly in her 
grave. At length her husband, exhausted by the passion of 
her importunity, said : " My dear, I'll tell you what I'll do. 
I'll have you buried here in Ashfield first, and if you don't He 
quiet I'll have you taken up and carried to Montana." The 
moral of this story is, that I have been buried here this evening 
under your hospitable attentions, and I have been resting 
quietly enough and I have not had the least desire to be taken 
up and carried to Montana or to this dizzy height on which I 
have been placed. Indeed, I have been resting, I think, a 
good deal more quietly than any other gentleman who is 
slightly elevated here — I mean above the general company. 
For, having my speech in rhyme, all nicely written out, I have 



57 

been able to devote myself exclusively to the good things of 
the menu, while they have been excogitating the good things 
they were to say. Delightful, said Lucretius, is the situation 
of the landsman on the shore who sees the storm-tossed 
mariner upon the sea. From my experience I am sure it must 
be so. You have been told that I am going to read a poem. 
It is called, " The Pilgrim Way, Nulla Vestigia Rctrorsiim." 
Perhaps it may turn out a song — perhaps a sermon. 

THE PILGRIM WAY. 

You know the picture : On the windy beach 

John Alden and Priscilla stand apart, 
Speaking no word ; so still it seems that each 

Might hear the beating of the other's heart. 

No dream is theirs of that degenerate time, 

When one, a scion of their vigorous stock. 
Our gentlest poet, in a tender rhyme, 

Shall all the treasures of their hearts unlock. 

That lessening sail against the eastern sky — 

What costly freight is buried in her hold. 
Whose loss should make the April sunshine lie 

On sea and shore so cheerless, gray and cold ? 

Their thoughts are all with her ; but they outwing 
Her laggard course across the treacherous deep, 

Nor pause till they can nestle where the Spring 
In English lanes has just begun to peep 

How sweet it were to keep their bridal there. 

When, after April, May should come apace. 
And then the Summer, as an angel fair. 

Should laugh outright in June's all perfect face ! 

To hear the joy bells in the ivied tower 

Ring out their nuptial gladness to the breeze. 
And so move homeward through a gleaming shower 

Of blossoms falling from the hawthorn trees ! 

It may not be; but only yesterday 

It might have been ; so near, so very near, 
The Mayflower, swinging at her anchor, lay. 

And who would go, and who would tarry here ? 

What sounds were those that, on the eastern gale. 

Come to them there, and not to them alone? 
Voices that made the ruddiest faces pale. 

Sadder than ocean's melancholv moan. 



58 

" Oh, fools! " they cried, " upon this barren shore, 

A better State or Church to hope to find, 
Or aught that can your reverence kindle more 

Than the dear things that you have left behind. 

" The homes wherein your fathers lived and died, 
The fields they tilled with manful toil and sweat. 

The churches where they worshipped side by side. 
The shores where they the rash invader met, 

" The ordered custom, the unwritten law 

A million precedents have welded fast 
In such a bond as never others saw 

In all the mighty immemorial past — 

" What sweeter kernel in your rougher shell? 

Yours, who already on the bleak hillside 
Have smoothed for corn the graves that else would tell 

How many of your bravest ones have died. 

" Nay, but you cannot cheat the savage foe. 

Nor so obliterate your dead that he 
Shall not how feeble is your remnant know. 

And band against you with the unpitying sea. 

" Come back, come back! ere yet it is too late. 
Leave your poor huts, your undistinguished dead, 

Crowd the frail deck, upheave the anchor's weight. 
Quick be the parting, ay, the cursing, said." 

Voices and voices! on the barren lea, 

They heard them cry across the cloudy rack; 

And every bush and century growing tree 

Had found a voice, and seemed to echo, " Back! " 

" Back ! " From the forest's depths they heard it sound, 
The voice of spirits, eager for their doom. 

" Back! " From the lonely graves it came, and drowned 
Their tempted hearts in seas of deadlier gloom. 

But that was yesterday; and now to-day 
Their poor ship falters in the ofl[ing there 

Twixt sea and sky, as if she would allay 
With one last hope the inevitable despair. 

Yea, she is gone, nor bears upon her deck 
One man or woman of the Pilgrim band, 

For all the horror of the Winter's wreck 
There in the desolate and homeless land. 

No backward step! More than the voices told 
Of merry England in their hearts they knew; 

More than the graves had echoed, and the old. 

Witch haunted forest, pierced their bosoms through. 



59 

But they had chosen and they would abide; 

Here they had come, and they had come to stay, 
Whatever loss or sorrow might betide. 

No backward step; this was the Pilgrim way. 



The thing that has been, it shall be again; 

So runs the promise of the ancient word; 
And, oh, how often since that morning, when 

John Alden and Priscilla might have heard 

Each other's heart beats, men of Pilgrim stock 
Have had their voices, as they stood forlorn 

On their own bleak and barren Plymouth Rock 
In some great Epoch's cold and cheerless morn. 

" Come back! " How clear has come the pleading cry 
From old Tradition's ivy mantled towers. 

From haunts where Ease and Comfort sleeping lie. 
Dreaming away the irrevocable hours! 

What old Abuse, what hoary Precedent, 

What chattering ghost of Faith once fair and sweet. 
Has not some measure to the music lent. 

Still tugging backward their reluctant feet? 

Why should they care a higher truth to win 
Than that which glorified their father's creed ? 

How should they dare denounce as 'twere a sin 
That which their law and custom had decreed! 



So from the Past; and at the Future's gate 

Has crouched and howled at them a giant Fear; 

"Go back, go back, ere yet it is too late! 
All hope abandon ye who enter here." 

Back have they gone ? Not if their spirit stuff. 
Not their flesh only, was the Pilgrim kind, 

Which, ever as the way grows steep and rough 
Shows a more fixed, unalterable mind. 

The time goes on, the symbol does not fail; 

For us, as for the generations gone, 
Good things with bad must struggle to prevail; 

With Error's night, fair Reason's radiant dawn. 

And we, like them from whom our stock derives. 
Elect on ways we have not known to go. 

'Gainst the night-watches how God's morning strives 
In our own bosoms soon ,or late must know. 



6o 



There will be voices sounding in our ears, 
Warning us backward from our fatal quest — 

Voices of all the dead and vanished years, 

Voices of Doubt and Fear and Peace and Rest. 

Then when we wonder if it were not well 

To strive no more and yield the vantage won, 

As men plucked backward from the mouth of hell. 
Clear as in heaven our own New England sun. 

May our resolve be taken: It is meet 

For us to be Pilgrims of our day; 
Whatever graves may open at our feet. 

No backward step; this is the Pilgrim way! 



TJie President : 

Gentlemen, — It will be our good fortune to hear a few un- 
premeditated words, inspired by the occasion, from our Rev. 
Chaplain, the Rev. Dr. William A. Snively. 



REMARKS OF REV. WM. A. SNIVELY, D. D. 

Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the Nezu England Soeiety 

{ivJio remain^ : [Laughter.] 

When the first intimation came to me that I was to be your 
chaplain to-night, I considered it so distinguished an honor 
that I set aside important engagements to accept the invita- 
tion. That an ecclesiastical descendant of the Church of 
England should be asked to officiate in that capacity at a New 
England dinner which celebrates the landing of the Pilgrims, 
is one of the strange results of the whirligig of time. 

My observation this evening has taught me two things : 
first, that excessive modesty is not an indispensable character- 
istic of a New England dinner speech ; and second, that the 
word Puritan is synonomous with the word Catholic, as we 
have been told that all that is good and noble in the aspirations 
and endeavors of men, is the outgrowth of the Puritan spirit. 
Therefore, if I claim to-night to be a Catholic, in the broader 
and truer sense of the word, I am simply a Puritan. 

I remember that the Pilgrims were Puritans of the English 



6i 

stock, who left the Church of England, possibly for the Church 
of England's good, — certainly for its peace and quiet ; — but 
also I remember that as they sailed away from the chalky 
shores of Devonshire, the Elder Higginson, standing upon the 
after-deck, with his comrades around him, said : " We will not 
say ' Farewell, Babylon ! ' we will not say ' Farewell, Rome ! ' 
but we will say 'Farewell, dear Church of God in England. It 
is only her errors and her mistakes that we leave behind.' " 

When, however, their voyage was ended, and they trod 
the American shore, circumstances were greatly changed, the 
dissenters became the Established Church ; and they who be- 
fore had been the Established Church, now became the dissen- 
ters. 

A distinguished churchman in tracing his ancestry back to 
the Quaker and Puritan lines whose blood mingled in his veins, 
relates the story of two young persons who had determined to 
unite their lives in the holy bonds of wedlock. There were 
serious objections however to the match. The Quakers dis- 
approved of his marrying out of the society, and the Congre- 
gationalists of his marrying into theirs. So he said to the 
young woman, in the presence of her family, " Ruth, let us 
break away from this unreasonable bondage. I will give up 
my religion and thou shalt give up thine, and we will go to the 
Church of England, and go to the d — 1 together." {Laughter^ 
The speech, rude as it was, is a rough memento of the esti- 
mate in which the Church of England was held in that day ; 
though possibly it was only the ancient form of the more re- 
cent but now venerable chestnut which says that the Episcopal 
Church does not interfere either with a man's politics or his 
religion. \Langhter and applause. ~\ For this reason I deem it 
an unusual distinction to be your chaplain to-night. 

In regard to that much-praised piece of granite. The 
Plymouth Rock ; I ask myself what would the Pilgrims who 
landed there think of the new Old South Church of Boston, 
with its splendid architecture, its gorgeous frescoes, and its 
exquisite wood-carving in pulpit and pew ? Would they not 
say, " surely we have found our way into a Popish mass house." 
\LaugJiter and applause.'] 

Or if they should enter the church which bears their name, 
on the corner of Remsen and Henry Streets, whose poly- 



62 

chromed walls echo an eloquence more brilliant than their own 
rich colors, — and especially if they should pause and look 
upon the fragment of Plymouth Rock imbedded in its tower, 
would they not ask in anxious alarm, have our descendants 
adopted the custom of worshipping the relics of the saints? 

But time makes all things equal, and an ecclesiastical de- 
scendant of the church from which the Pilgrim Fathers seceded, 
is your chaplain to-night, at the dinner which celebrates their 
landing on the stern New England shore. Things which were 
fought over then, do not separate us now ; and the mellowing 
influence of time, and the larger thought of to-day, obliterates 
the importance of many an opinion and doctrine which then 
was deemed a fit subject of controversy or a just cause of war. 

And while Plymouth Rock has been much praised and much 
eulogized, in song and ovation and story in the last two hun- 
dred years, there is one aspect of that theme to which justice 
has never been done. I refer to the distinguished superiority 
of the descendants of the Pilgrims over the original Pilgrims 
themselves. I have never yet met a descendant of the Pilgrims 
whom I did not admire and love more than I did the venerable 
heroes who stepped from the deck of the Mayflower to the 
historic Plymouth Rock. 

Thanking you for your warm and cordial reception, I am 
proud to have been your humble servant ; and I bid you good 
night. {^Applause^ 



The President : 

And now we hail our beloved friends, 

"OUR SISTER SOCIETIES." 

But first, I grieve to announce that our always eloquent, 
and always welcome friend. General Woodford, bent on early 
rising, has left the room and is not here to respond for the New 
England Society in New York, to our words of cordial 
greeting. 

But the sleepless President of our honored allies. The St. 



63 

Nicholas Society of Nassau Island, is here, to respond to our 
brotherly salutation, and thus we shall be happy in hearing 
Hon. John W. Hunter. 



REMARKS OF HON. JOHN W. HUNTER. 

Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen of the Neiv England Society: 

We may congratulate the sons of New England in their 
happy manner of preserving their historic traditions. It is 
said that a people without traditions is like a tree without 
roots. It cannot be said that the descendants of the Pilgrim 
Fathers have neglected to water the roots of their traditions. 
Have they not rather added new leaves and foliage to the 
original tree? The Hollanders, though earlier in their settle- 
ment, have not been so fortunate nor industrious in the culti- 
vation of their traditions. A certain history of New York may 
be very pleasant reading, yet it cannot be said to contain a 
proper account of the early trials and traditions of the first 
settlers of this country. But what may be said of Holland, 
and the Hollanders? A people who rescued their land from 
the sea, who, after many years of desperate struggle drove out 
the Spaniards, who, for twelve years tolerated and purified the 
Puritans before they drifted over to the shores of New Eng- 
land and established freedom to worship God in the way they 
pointed out, and it was not very comfortable for those who 
sought some other way. But for the indomitable patience, 
labor and skill of the people, there would have been no 
Holland ; the land would have been swallowed up by the sea. 
If there had been no Holland, England, perhaps, might have 
become a Spanish province. If there had been no Holland, 
there would have been no Pilgrims. If there had been no 
Dutch settlement at New Amsterdam, there would have been 
no Yankee, and no " Yankee Doodle." The New Englanders 
were not pleasant neighbors to the Dutch ; indeed there was 
continual unpleasantness going on between them. Hard 
words, hard names, and sometimes hard blows were exchanged. 
But we have arrived at a better understanding now; both peo- 
ple are blended into one, and have helped to make a nation, 
proud, perhaps, of former derisive names. Now a word of 



64 

explanation on the subject of " Yankee " and " Yankee 
Doodle," as well as of the " Dutch " — both names given orig- 
inally without much respect. Dr. Moore, in a paper, read 
before the Society of New York, says that " Yankee " is 
derived from the verb "yanken,"in the vocabulary of the 
early New York Dutch. " Yanken" meant in that dialect to 
grumble, snarl, or yelp, and its derivative noun "Yanker" 
means about the same thing. In the collison between the 
New Englanders and the New York Dutch, bad blood was 
aroused, and the New Englanders despised the Dutchmen, 
while the latter abominated the former, the feeling being very 
fervid on both sides. Hence the use of the word " Yankee " 
by the Dutch ; every circumstance points to its birth in the 
collisions between the Dutch and the New Englanders. To 
this day the Yankees are looked on with distrust by the rem- 
nant of the real Dutchmen of New York. The word " Yan- 
kee " was known to the settlers of this country before the tune 
" Yankee Doodle." The words and tune were put together 
by Dr. Richard Schuckburgh, who was with the British army 
at Albany when the colonial troops from New England joined 
the regulars on the way to fight the French. The appearance 
of the colonial troops excited the derision of the British regu- 
lars, and the latter used the words and tune as arranged by 
Dr. Schuckburgh to show their contempt for the former. The 
term " Doodle " means a trifler, and is used in old English in 
that sense. Dr. Moore gave accounts of other derivations, the 
most plausible and most commonly used being that of "Yen- 
gees," believed by many to be the Indian phonetic attempt to 
utter the word English ; but he made it clear that this deriva- 
tion, with the other less probable ones, could not bear examin- 
ation, and he showed that the derivation from " Yanker," a 
Dutch word, expressive of great contempt was the true one. 
" Yankee Doodle " was played by the Colonial troops at the 
surrender of Burgoyne and at Yorktown when the British 
were unwilling to surrender to the despised Colonials, and 
turned to the French contingent to ground arms, Lafayette 
ordered the French band to play "Yankee Doodle," to which 
tune the arms were laid down and the war ended. And what 
a glorious ending was this ! The proud and lofty humbled by 
the poor, despised Colonists, with the music which they had 



65 

inaugurated in derision, ringing in their ears, and adding bit- 
terness to defeat. So may it be to all the enemies of the 
'' Yankees" and of "Yankee Doodle." 



TJic President : 

Our trusty and welcome friends, the St. Patrick Society of 
Brooklyn are here, by their eloquent, right-minded, and right- 
hearted President, William Sullivan, Esq., whom we shall 
gladly hear. 

REMARKS OF WILLIAM SULLIVAN, ESQ. 

In behalf of the St. Patrick Society I congratulate you on 
the prosperous condition of your society, and also thank you 
for your cordial reception of me as its representative, and for 
your bountiful hospitality. In the New World the interest 
and sympathies and destiny of Jonathan and Patrick are 
identical. They are closely allied by reciprocal friendship and 
regard, resting on similitude of character, and mutual desire 
as citizens of a common country to promote its well being by 
extending the influence of those great ethical and political 
principles which as expressed by your worthy president on a 
former occasion, have given New England such wide sway in 
the affairs of the nation, and which are essential to the best in- 
terests and perpetuity of the Republic. Nay, more, they are 
indissolubly united by the bonds of affinity and the ties of 
consanguinity. The prolific sons of St. Patrick have contributed 
to the perpetuation of the principles and virtues of the Pil- 
grim Fathers by preserving their descendants from extinction. 
They are the connecting links between the Pilgrim Fathers 
who landed on Plymouth Rock and the twenty million 
Yankees who can trace their lineal descent as far back as the 
arrival of the Mayflower. Now, in the glorious days of old 
Ireland every man — as you are all aware — was a warrior or a 
statesman or both, and every warrior was a general, and every 
statesman was a king. The pristine glory of the nation dis- 
appeared, and the people lost their liberties when they gave 
the suffrage to the women, who at once evinced their ingrati- 
tude by voting to double the tax on whiskey. From that 



66 

event dates the opposition of the Irish to female suffrage, and 
their advocacy of universal manhood suffrage. In view, then^ 
of the quality of the connecting links between the Yankees 
and their Pilgrim Fathers, the Irishman must certainly admire 
the Yankee for his noble pride of ancestry. When, therefore, 
Mr. President, an Irishman who has the honor of being present 
at a New England society dinner while the speeches are being 
delivered, hears the orator of the evening recounting the glo- 
rious achievements, and extolling the virtues of the prolific 
ancestors of the Yankees, he realizes that, in the language of 
the Scriptures, "the glory of the children is their fathers','' 
and his heart dilates with emotions of filial reverence and piety, 
and he begins to feel that New England belongs to Ireland by 
right of sovereignty- — squatter sovereignty — and that Fore- 
fathers' day is a great day for "ould" Ireland. The Irish cele- 
brate St. Patrick's day because St. Patrick was the first Pilgrim 
who went to Ireland with the intention of remaining there. 
Your Pilgrim Fathers, because they did not understand the 
vernacular of the Aborigines, had to carry guns with them 
wherever they went so as to convince the natives of the peace- 
fulness of their intentions. But St. Patrick spoke Irish, and 
consequently he succeeded in carrying his point without the 
aid of even a shillelah. The New Englander carries New 
England with him wherever he goes, except when he leaves 
for the purpose of becoming a Mormon. When, like Joe 
Smith, he migrates for this purpose, he has to leave New Eng- 
land behind him. I am somewhat inclined to think that the 
Irishman's method of settling the Mormon question is prefer- 
able to the Yankee's way of dealing with it. There is no use 
of trying to drive New England ideas into the head of a Mor- 
mon. When, however, the Irish take possession of Utah, the 
Mormon question will be settled satisfactorily to everybody 
but the Mormons ; for an Irishman with one wife can beat any 
Mormon with a dozen wives. The sons of St. Patrick, no less 
than the sons of New England, believe in the principles which 
are sometimes termed " New England ideas." They believe 
in the diffusion of education among the masses by the estab- 
lishment and support of free schools. They believe in the 
sanctity of the marital relation and in the purity of domestic 
life. They believe in the freedom of individual conscience. 



6; 

They believe in just and equal laws impartially administered 
and honestly inforced. They believe in the sacredness of the 
elective franchise, and they realize the dignity of American 
citizenship and recognize its obligations. They believe in local 
self government, in home rule, and in all those fundamental 
principles of popular liberty which lie at the foundation of our 
system of government, and which guarantee equal rights to all, 
and insure the permanence of free institutions everywhere 
throughout the land. " When," in the language of a distin- 
guished historian, " we contemplate, in the landing of the Pil- 
grims at Plymouth, the beginning of a mighty nation ; their 
confidence in God and liberty ; their struggles, hardships, and 
sufferings; their zealous vigilance of rights, and their visions 
of growth and greatness — we may hear in the prayers and ex- 
hortations which were echoed in the wilderness, the divine 
proclamation ' that the voice of the people is the voice of 
God.' " The sons of St. Patrick, Mr. President, cherish the 
principles and virtues of the Pilgrim Fathers, and thank God 
that this is a nation of which liberty is the soul, the treasure, 
and the fundamental law. 



DOXOLOGY, 

Praise God from whom all blessings flow, 
Praise him all creatures here below, 
Praise him above, ye heavenly host. 
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." 



The Annual Reception of the Society was held in the Art 
Building, 174 Montague Street, on Thursday evening, Feb. 4, 
1886, and was attended in large numbers by the members 
and their families, who listened with great interest to the fol- 
lowing address by the HON. W. P. SHEFFIELD, of Newport, 
Rhode Island, upon 

"THE SOLDIERS AND SAILORS OF NEW 
ENGLAND." 

The President, Mr. Winslow, introduced Mr. Sheffield, who 
spoke as follows : 



Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Nezv Eng/anei Soeiety : 

We of New England lineage delight to dwell upon the hal- 
lowed memories of our New England ancestors ; to recall 
their high resolves, their trials, their conflicts and their unpro- 
pitious surroundings ; to contemplate their principles of 
action, their perfect faith in Divine Providence, their rigid de- 
votions, their fortitude, their foibles, their shortcomings and 
their patience in suffering. Then by an easy transition of 
thought, we are made to realize our gratitude for the territory 
they opened to civilization, the institutions they founded, the 
self-denial they practiced, and are brought to the consideration 
of how much of the growth and prosperity of this, the most 
powerful country on earth is due, and for how much of their 
happiness the happiest people of our time are indebted for 
what they are, and for what they have, to what has come down 
to them from the Pilgrims and Puritans of New England. 

For a brief hour let us contemplate the courage and endur- 
ance of the founders and of the descendants of the founders of 
New England, as illustrated in its history. This is a hackneyed 
theme ; but where other hands have reaped and gathered the 



70 

harvest, may we not perform the humbler office of gleaning the 
f^eld ? 

A blending of light and shadow is necessary to the perfec- 
tion of every work of art representing anything in nature; and 
as we recall the courage and consider the endurance of our 
New England fathers, let us not forget while we survey them 
and their surroundings and exult in their achievements that 
they were not wholly exempted from the infirmities insep- 
arable from human existence. 

For centuries before the landing of the Pilgrims at 
Plymouth a conflict had been carried on in England between 
the rulers and the ruled to liberate the creeds and consciences 
of men from the determinations and restraints of law, and to 
absolve their persons and estates from the control of despots. 
During this long period the struggle for freedom was not at all 
times under intelligent direction ; indeed, it may be well 
doubted if the ultimate logical result of the conflict was clearly 
comprehended, but this was rather left to be developed as the 
controversy progressed. TheefTorts to throw off the restraints 
imposed upon men by the tyrannies practiced by governments 
in the sixteenth and seventeeth centuries were arduous, some- 
times made by good men actuated by high purposes, and some- 
times the cause was advanced by bad men instigated by bad 
motives, but the advance of the race towards the goal sought 
for, was always opposed by tyrants and bigots. From the re- 
sults of this great and continued struggle, it is apparent that 
there is ever working in human society an unseen force, a 
subtle influence unappreciated, which is nevertheless operative 
in elevating men in society, advancing them in civilization and 
assisting them in working out the great problems of human 
life. This influence directs wars, crimes, accidents and great 
oppressions, to contribute to results the opposite of those to 
which they appear to naturally tend. The apprehension of 
the fires of Smithfield and the terrors of the Tower of London 
drove the Puritans out of England and across the sea. The 
threat of a brutal king that he would make the Puritans con- 
form, or he would hurry them out of the land, or he would do 
something worse, he would hang them, was uttered with ter- 
rible earnestness of purpose, and the Puritans understood its 
import. 



71 

When arraigned before Governor Haines, of Massachusetts, 
for heresy, that Puritan of Puritans, Roger WilHams, announced 
his religious behefs, and adds, substantially, these are the things 
which I believe ; for them you may kill me, but they will live, 
because they are God's truths, and God is stronger than all his 
adversaries. If the awfully sublime philosophy wrapped up in 
this sententious sentence, that God is the author of right and 
will vindicate it against all of its adversaries, had burst into the 
besotted mind of James I., the vision would have shaken it as 
with an earthquake shock and overwhelmed it. In the order 
of things it appears to be necessary to shock the human under- 
standing by some great crisis in human affairs to arouse men 
to the performance of the greatest actions. Civilization is but 
a continual confirmation of the great fact that He who rules 
the universe " makes the wrath of man to praise Him." 

Henry VIII. waged an unjust quarrel with the Pope, and 
in his resentment absolved his subjects from their allegiance to 
the Holy See, Henry then arrogated to himself the duties of 
the pontifical office in his kingdom and thereunder assumed 
the spiritual control of his subjects. 

After Henry came the short uneventful reign of Edward VI. 

Then came Mary, eldest daughter of Henry, to the throne, 
who, maddened by the wrongs her mother had received at the 
hands of her brutal father, restored the authority of the Pope 
throughout her kingdom. The record of the reign of Mary is 
written in the blood of her subjects. She died in 1588. 

Elizabeth succeeded Mary. The fact that induced Mary to 
be a Catholic made Elizabeth espouse the cause of the Protest- 
ants. She at once proclaimed uniformity of worship, and de- 
clared herself to be the head of the church. She became pope 
within her kingdom. Soon after a law was enacted making 
revolt from the church treason to the State. 

The tact and knowledge of men and affairs which had char- 
acterized the administration of Elizabeth were wanting in the 
succeeding reigns of James I. and Charles I., and dissenters 
then multiplied with rapidity, and the officers of the law ex- 
erted themselves with energy to have prosecutions and punish- 
ments keep pace with the progress of dissent. 

James reduced the Puritans to a choice between the sur- 
render of their faith, exile and death. 



72 

Groups of these unfortunate persons gathered from time 
to time in the towns, villages, in the by places, and in the 
hamlets of England, to take counsel together upon the choice 
of the alternatives before them. Men and women, allied to 
their native land by ties of kindred and birth, and by the tra- 
ditions of its history, gathered at these consultations. The 
election must be made : Could they yield their convictions of 
duty? The weak among them faltered, but there were there 
lofty spirits who believed that duty to God could not be trea- 
son to the king. No Tudor or Stuart could hold their souls in 
bondage, for they owed their highest allegiance to the King of 
Kings. The dangers of the sea, an inhospitable climate, the 
terrors of the savages and of a wilderness could not be put into 
the balance to be weighed against the frowns of an angry 
God, or to atone for violated duty. Here is the sublimity of 
exalted courage. The valor of Lannes at Lodi, or of Augerearo 
at Arcole, acting in the white heat of battle, sink into insig- 
nificance when compared with the high resolves and lofty 
courage of the Pilgrim and Puritan founders of New England. 
Their exodus was the genesis of America. When these people 
left England they left behind the English Church and the 
British empire. Their aim and aspirations were to establish 
a new church and a new State. They had not yet advanced to 
the partition wall that was to be reared between the two, but 
were content to found their State on the church, and to make 
it an instrument in giving effect to the will of the church ; 
they dethroned both pope and potentate and vested their 
powers in the church. They at first stopped at the half-way 
house in their advance toward religious liberty, but it was a 
wonderful stride to accomplish half the journey from Arch- 
bishop Laud to Roger Williams. From the standpoint thus 
attained other and more adventurous spirits than the govern- 
ing Puritans took a new start, and boldly struck for the sever- 
ance of church and State, and for the kindred idea that gov- 
ernments are instituted solely for the benefit of the governed, 
and that officers are agencies selected for the benefit of the 
people. 

It is said that the early settlers of New England persecuted 
the Baptists and Quakers, and hung witches ; and this is true. 
But in this they acted up to the light they had received, to 



n 

the understanding which their intellectual growth had attained; 
and, like Saul in his journey to Damascus, in doing these 
things they really believed that they were doing God service, 
and the world, save a little spot indicated on the map of New 
England so obscurely that it would easily escape casual obser- 
vation, was overshadowed by the darkness in which they were 
enveloped; but the clouds soon gave way, and the sun-light of 
soul liberty broke in upon them, and has since then been pro- 
gressing in its march over the world. 

The Puritans had placed themselves where three thousand 
miles of ocean, with its perils and penalties separated them 
from the prelatical hierarchy of England, and more than that, 
from the Roman pontiff. They acknowledged spiritual alle- 
giance only to the sovereign of the universe. The Rev. John 
Robinson had admonished the Pilgrims on parting with them 
at Leyden " that God had new truths to reveal from his Scrip- 
tures," and added, in sorrow, that '' the Lutherans could not 
be drawn to go beyond Luther, or the Calvinists to go beyond 
where Calvin had left them ; these," said he, " were precious 
shining lights in their times, yet God had not revealed his 
whole will to them, and were they alive they would be as 
ready to embrace further light, as they had been to embrace 
the light which they had received." This admonition abided 
with the men who had received it, and slowly made its way, 
and is even now exerting its influence in the theology of New 
England. 

The institutions which they left behind them were based 
upon the divine right of kings ; to this dogma the founders of 
New England opposed at first the divine right of the people in 
church estate. Emerged from a sea of corruption and tyranny, 
the accumulation of centuries, about the British government, 
the Puritans sought to establish in the wilds of America, insti- 
tutions founded on the principles of the most exalted virtue. 
That they fell below their aim none will deny. They sought 
to environ their civil state with the sanctity and goodness of 
the church to attain their purpose. They were unwilling to 
leave dominion over the minds of men to Him who alone has 
perfect cognizance of human thought, and in their criminal 
code they laid too much stress upon offences such as heresy, 
profanity and Sabbath-breaking, against which they denounced 



74 

penalties apparently designed to represent the Divine wrath, 
rather than a just appreciation of a violation of the laws of 
sinful men. 

When these people first landed on the shores of New Eng- 
land they found themselves hedged about with difficulties on 
every side — the forest peopled with wild beasts and savage 
men, was before them ; the ocean on whose troubled bosom 
they had been borne hither was behind them; inclement skies 
were over them — yet they were to provide for themselves and 
for those dependent upon them, food, clothing, habitation 
and civil society. In the presence of these circumstances, dark- 
ness and gloom well nigh sunk them to despair, but when the 
future of the country whose foundation they had come hither 
to lay, was opened to their vision, a new inspiration animated 
them with a high and holy zeal and carried them up to the 
highest plane of human action, and they nobly embraced the 
work of founding a State which had been committed to them. 

A provision for the necessities of life, the establishing of 
churches, schools and colleges, with the making of provisions 
for protection from and the conversion of the savages, were 
subjects of their extreme solicitude. Theirs was no everyday 
routine life, for each day brought with it new duties, new cares 
and new responsibilities. 

In the beginning they encountered the problem which has 
ever hung upon and perplexed our frontier life — the conflict 
between civilized and savage existence, a conflict the evils of 
which in given instances might possibly have been mitigated, 
but have not, and in the present condition of human society 
cannot be wholly avoided. The Indian has retired or been 
driven back before the pioneer in his westward march, until 
these unhappy children of the forest are already crossing the 
Rocky Mountains to meet their kindred who are on their way 
eastward, crossing the Sierras before the coming tide of civili- 
zation setting in from the shores of the Pacific, perhaps to find 
a common grave for their race between these great mountain 
ranges. 

For two centuries and a half the Indian race has been in 
contact with the borders of civilization, yet this race has made 
little progress in the arts of civilized life ; the lion and the lynx 
have not yet been domesticated ; the eagle will not rear its 



75 

young in confinement; and while I would forego no reasonable 
effort to ameliorate the condition of the Indian, I can indulge 
no very strong confidence in the ultimate result of such effort 
unless he is taken from his tribal relations when young and is 
not again allowed to return to them. 

The pioneers of New England early encountered savage 
hostilities. The conspiracy of the Massachusetts Indians for 
the destruction of the whites, the murder of Oldham at Block 
Island, and of Stone and Norton at Connecticut, disclosed the 
intentions of the savages towards the whites. Miles Standish 
and his followers broke the Massachusetts conspiracy at Wey- 
mouth, John Endicott and Captain Underbill made a demon- 
stration upon Block Island, and Colonel John Mason, on a high 
ridge, in the east part of Groton, attacked the Pequots, and 
made the early morning lurid with the fire which consumed 
this enemy and their dwellings, and dissipated a warlike 
tribe of savages. In the war with the United Provinces, in 
1653, Rhode Island alone, of the New England colonies, went 
to the assistance of the English settlers on the east end of Long 
Island, against the Dutch and Indians ; with twenty men, the 
prisoners in the colony, and four privateers, they captured an 
Indian fort and conquered a peace. 

In 1675, Philip's war broke out, and the colonists of New 
England were then subjected to their severest trials. The mur- 
ders, the marches, the ambushes, the burnings, the cruelties and 
terrors of that time, indicate the endurance, the courage and 
power of the men who won the victory in that conflict. Philip 
was cunning, energetic, persistent, but cowardly and brutal. 
Canonchet who joined Philip in the war, was brave, and though 
a savage, had much nobility of soul; when captured he wished 
to die before his heart got soft, and before he had done any- 
thing unworthy of himself. 

Our blood grows cold with terror as we contemplate the 
battle of December 19th, 1675. Three thousand Indians were 
within a fort containing five hundred wigwams on an island in 
the great swamp in South Kingston, Rhode Island. This 
was sixteen miles from any considerable white settlement. 
The colonies had 1,500 men in arms in the neighbor- 
hood. It was intensely cold, and the air was filled with snow 
with which the ground was deeply covered. The Indians were 



76 

aware of the approach of the whites. The conflict was opened 
and persisted in with great courage and energy; finally, the fort 
was set on fire, Indians attempting to escape were killed, 
and those who remained were burned up. After night had set 
in, the army started through a pathless forest in the blinding 
snow to seek shelter and food at Smith's trading house. Many 
of the wounded had to be carried, or to be assisted, by freezing 
men. The horrors of the battle and of that night's march baf- 
fle description, but in that conflict the power of the Narragan- 
setts was broken, and the last hope of Philip for gathering 
another formidable army east of the Hudson, and west of 
Maine, perished. 

In 1689, New Englanders, under Sir William Phipps, on the 
breaking out of King William's war, conquered Acadia, now 
called Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, from the French, but 
this territory was restored to France by the treaty of Ryswick 
in 1697. In 1710, during Queen Ann's war, Arcadia was again 
conquered by New England troops, and was finally ceded to 
England by the treaty of Utrecht, in 17 13. 

France now made considerable settlements on the northern 
frontier of New England, and had made advances on the north- 
western border. Before the war between England and Spain, 
in 1739, which was the prelude of the war of the Austrian Succes- 
sion, France had cultivated the most friendly relations with the 
Indian tribes of Canada and New York, through the agency of 
Jesuit priests. These priests were extreme fanatics, partaking 
of the worst spirit of the times in which they lived. They 
believed in the divine right of kings, such as acknowledged the 
pontifical authority of the pope, and that any service they 
could render the king, without regard to its moral quality, 
was a service to God. Acting in the full realization of this faith, 
they instigated the Indians and the Acadian inhabitants of 
Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, to loiter on the borders of 
the New England settlements, and ambush and slaughter 
the dwellers there, as they were at work in their fields, or 
alone in their homes, to burn their dwellings, kill their cattle 
and take families into captivity. With these tragedies our school 
books used to be filled, and our minds when we read them 
recoiled with horror from their recital, save the terrible retri- 
bution inflicted by that New England mother who with her 



77 

nurse and infant were taken into captivity, the infant while 
on her journey was snatched from her arms and dashed 
against a tree. I read, I confess, with some exultation, 
that part of the story of her captivity in which is told how in 
the midnight she with her faithful nurse and a Worcester boy 
arose from their couches and killed and scalped ten of the 
twelve Indians sleeping about her, and then took the Indian 
weapons, and she and her companions with the Indian scalps 
in a bark canoe floated down the Merrimac and safely arrived 
at her home. 

Early in the war with Spain the colonies were called upon 
to supply troops for an expedition against Cuba, and seamen 
to join Admiral Vernon before Carthagena. Of these troops 
not one in ten returned. The yellow fever was a more potent 
enemy to them than the armies of France and Spain. Before the 
breaking out of this war New England had been extensively 
engaged in carrying on a commerce with the West Indies and 
with the Spanish Main, Their captains were familiar with 
every island, shoal and trading port in that portion of the 
French and Spanish dominions. The British government 
authorized the colonies to commission private armed vessels 
to cruise against the common enemies. New England, under 
this authority, sent out many of these cruisers, some of which 
returned deeply freighted with spoils taken from their enemies. 
Bishop Kip, in his book on Early Spanish Missions, repeats a 
description of a single adventure of one of these privateers on 
the Spanish Main, who laid waste fifteen hundred miles of 
territory, as reported by a parish priest to his bishop. To the 
description thus given of the adventure of the Prince Charles of 
Lorraine, of which Simeon Potter was commander, I may add 
that the adventure was the subject of an international corres- 
pondence, and the British government ordered Judge Stren- 
gerfield, an Admiralty Judge, to investigate the conduct of 
Captain Potter. The Judge took much testimony, and 
reported that all he could find in the affair was, that Captain 
Potter, considering the means in his power, had done more 
for his Majesty's service than any other of his Majesty's sub- 
jects. 

New England engaged heartily in this war. The French 
on their frontier lines was their objective point ; and some of 



78 

the New England people were stimulated further to exertion 
by the fact that Sir Charles Wager, then the First Lord of the 
Admiralty under Walpole's administration, had been reared 
amongst them. 

The spirit of New England was too high and moved with 
too great rapidity for her people to be satisfied with the routine 
movements of the home government. The Fortress of Louis- 
burg, on the Island of Cape Breton, was a standing menace to 
€very fisherman who attempted to enter the St. Lawrence, 
Massachusetts taking the lead. New England resolved upon 
the capture of that fortress. A formidable expedition was 
fitted out, and the fortress was captured ; but to the very 
great regret of the New England colonies, it was receded to 
France in the treaty of 1748. 

After this treaty there was no peace with the French in 
America. France claimed all the territory west of a line 
drawn from the marshes of Nova Scotia to Crown Point, then 
down Lake Champlain, and along the ridge of the Alleghanies 
to the Spanish possessions bordering on the Gulf of Mexico, 
and extending southward to the Rio-del Norte. 

At this time the Dutch in New York were not enthusiastic 
in supporting the claims of the British government. The 
Quakers of Pennsylvania had to stand by their testimonies, New 
Jersey was behind Pennsylvania and New York, and deemed 
herself too secure from attack to hazard the result of a war, 
and the legislature of Virginia would not vote men or money 
to resist the claims of F'rance unless their royal governor would 
forego the charge of a pistole for every grant of land he signed. 
The governor deemed this demand upon him to be an at- 
tempt to degrade his office, and he would not accede to it. 
Yet Virginia sent out an expedition under George Washing- 
ton to make demand upon the French commander to remove 
their forts and force from the border, but Washington was de- 
feated, and a second force was sent out under Braddock, which 
was defeated also, and the commander was slain. This was 
the beginning of the seven years war, and this beginning set 
Europe on fire. 

Large forces were annually recruited during this war in 
New England for the defence of the northern frontier, but 
with little result, except when- Lyman the Yale professor and 



79 

Winslow the Marshfield farmer were accidentally in command, 
beyond inflicting very great sufferings upon the recruits until a 
change was affected in the British ministry. Johnston and 
Louden were each incompetent to command, but upon the 
change of the ministry, when Pitt was placed at the head of 
affairs, and Amherst and Wolf were sent to take command of 
the armies in America, the character of the conflict was changed. 
This war came to its crisis on the plains of Abraham, September 
13th, 1759, when the power of France on the northern and north- 
western frontier of the American colonies was buried forever 
in the grave of Montcalm. 

The private armed vessels from the ports of New England 
were out with added force, and did gallant Service during the 
seven years war. 

The Puritans did not regard the war as being only a war of 
races, but their energies were quickened by the belief that it 
possessed something of the character of a conflict between the 
followers of Calvin and the followers of Loyola. 

England received from the wrecks of empire occasioned by 
this war for its salvage service, the French possessions in the 
north and west of the British American colonies. 

The conquest of this territory not only released their hold 
upon the British colonies, but had alike effect upon the hold of 
the colonies upon the British government, for the colonies were 
no longer available to the government in carrying on a war 
against France ; and the aid of the government was no longer 
necessary to protect the colonies against the French and their 
allies. So that the only power at this period of colonial exist- 
ence that was seeking to oppress the colonies was " the home 
government." In the Spanish-French war, and in the seven 
years war the colonies had been inspired with a military spirit 
and had acquired a good degree of military experience and 
discipline. General Charles Lee, under date of October 29, 
1774, says "Virginia, Rhode Island and Carolina are forming 
(military) corps. Massachusetts has long had a sufficient num- 
ber instructed to become instructors to the rest. Even this 
Quaker Province (Pennsylvania) is following the example. I 
was present at a review of some of their companies at Provi- 
dence, in Rhode Island, and really never saw anything more 
perfect." 



8o 

It is difficult to ascertain precisely where and when the 
revolution commenced. The first clause of the opening chap- 
ter of Stedman's history of this war refers to the forcible tak- 
ing of forty pieces of cannon of different sizes belonging to the 
Crown from the fort in the harbor of Newport. This act was 
done under the authority of the colonial legislature, and Sted- 
man adds that they did not hesitate to own that it was done 
to prevent the cannon from falling into the hands of the 
King's troops, and that they (the colonists) meant to use them 
against any power that should offer to molest them. 

Arthur Brown, a native of New England, who went abroad 
before the revolution, and never returned to his native country, 
author of Brown's Civil and Admiralty Law and other works, 
the associate of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Edmund Burke, Hume 
and Garrick, writing upon the subject of the commencement 
of the Revolution, says : " The discontents of America are 
usually dated from the Stamp Act, in 1765, but they really 
originated in 1763, immediately after the peace (1762) from the 
interdiction of their trade with the Spanish Main." ^ * * 
He adds, " I myself saw one American fort fire upon the 
Squirril, a King's ship, in 1764, in the harbor of New Port." 
The truth is, that the war was evolved as a necessary result 
from the character of the colonists and of the British govern- 
ment, and in the relations they sustained at the time to each 
other. 

Massachusetts, as early as 1641, denied the power of the 
British Parliament to legislate for that colony. The other 
New England colonies, as did Massachusetts, based their exclu- 
sive right to legislate for themselves upon provisions of their 
respective charters. 

Pervading the entire colonial systems of government in 
these colonies, from the beginning, was a desire for independ- 
ence, — independence of that country which had driven the 
Puritans into exile. 

The presence of any officer of the crown, in any of these 
colonies was regarded as a menace to their chartered rights. 
Chalmers says of Rhode Island and Connecticut that " they 
were pure democracies — the former exercised without restraint 
every power deliberative and executive. In 1704, Montpesson, 
Chief Justice of New York, wrote to Lord Nottingham that 



when he was at Rhode Island "they did in all things as if they 
were out of the dominion of the crown." Chalmers says fur- 
ther, " Connecticut being inhabited by a people of the same 
principles, though of different religion, they acted the same 
political part as those of Rhode Island ; " quoting a dispatch 
of Lord Cornbury to the board of trade, he adds of these two 
colonies that " they hate everybody that owns any subjection 
to the Queen." 

The Crown and Parliament of England claimed the right 
by their acts to bind the colonies in all cases whatsover. The 
colonies denied the right of the Crown and Parliament under 
their colonial charters to bind them in any case whatever, and 
here the parties were at issue. When the revolution came it 
was the coming in forcible contact of the system of govern- 
ment of the old world and of the new — the meeting face to 
face of the civilization of Europe and America in a contest of 
arms for the mastery. Coming generations beckoned the Whigs 
on in the conflict for the abolition of old methods and the 
inauguration of the new, to dethrone the king and exalt the 
people. 

Clouds of strife had long been gathering, at times they had 
opened in fitful bursts, but the storm of war did not set in 
while its evils could be postponed. 

The conflict came, and at Lexington, Concord, Bunker Hill, 
Bennington, Saratoga, Rhode Island, in the Middle States, at 
Yorktown, and every battle of the revolution north of York- 
town, the New Englanders demonstrated their valor and made 
offerings of their blood a sacrifice upon the altar of their 
country. 

According to the report of General Knox, Secretary of 
War, to Congress in 1790, there were enlisted into the armies 
of the revolution 231,796 men. Of these there were enlisted 
from New England 118,350, from the Middle States 54,1 16, and 
from the Southern States 59,330 ; thus it appears there were 
enlisted from the four New England colonies or states, 4,904 
more men than from the remaining nine colonies or states. In 
addition to this, the public and private armed vessels of the 
Union drew their crews largely from New England. The 
smallest in territory of the New England States issued at least 
two hundred commissions to private armed vessels. The 



82 

character of the men engaged on board of these vessels and 
the services they rendered the country I have considered else- 
where ; here it is only necessary to say that no braver men 
ever trod a plank or encountered an enemy than the New- 
England privateersmen engaged in the American revolution. 

The French war made the revolution and American Inde- 
pendence possible. When we consider the part taken by New 
Englanders in these wars, we are impressed with the obligations 
of the people of the American Union to the descendants of the 
Puritans for the results of those wars ; for, had it not been for 
New England men, the revolution might not have been, and 
it is among the possibilities that the people of the United 
States might even now have been inhabitants of British Prov- 
inces. 

The founders of New England were impoverished by their 
exile. But poverty is not an unmixed evil. It is a strict dis- 
ciplinarian. It chastens the spirit, and restrains a disposition 
to form habits of dissipation and extravagance. It incites to 
industry, and inspires the aspiring youth with energy and 
enforces economy. Wealth relieves its possessor from the 
necessity to toil, and affords the means of creating tastes for 
and indulging in habits of excess and idleness. 

The Puritans aimed to put within the reach of their chil- 
dren the means of educating themselves up to the extent of 
their capacity for usefulness, and made a reasonable pressure 
upon them to ensure the attainment of this end. 

Self-reliance was, however, the great lesson of early New 
England life. Without this, our fathers believed and taught 
but little advance could be made onward or upward in the 
scale of human existence. If a man depends upon others 
or upon his surroundings for elevation or advancement in life 
he will generally be disappointed, for individual effort, contin- 
ued and well directed exertion, work out results for men and 
in men which neither wealth nor friends can obtain for them. 

I love to dwell in thought upon the heroic self reliance 
under God of our forefathers as they boldly threw themselves 
upon the ocean and went out in search of and to establish homes 
churches, schools and States in an unexplored land. To reflect 
how almost single-handed they entered the forest and there 
braved the savage hordes they encountered, and of their reli- 



83 

ance upon the elements about them for food, clothing, habita- 
tion, and the means of future prosperity, I feel exalted as I 
walk the streets they laid out, and visit the scenes consecrated 
to history by their deeds. 

If one is asked for the names of descendants of the Puri- 
tans who have become illustrious in their vocations, he is em- 
barrassed by the wealth of material out of which to reply, and 
can only with difficulty from the many, select a few from 
some of the leading pursuits of life. Among her scientists, 
may be found the names Franklin, Silliman and Pierce ; of her 
artists, Copley, Stuart and Powers ; of her statesmen, John 
Adams, Roger Sherman and Daniel Webster; of her jurist- 
consults, Henry Wheaton, Joseph Story and President Wool- 
sey ; of her judges, Curtis, Shaw and Parker; of her orators, 
James Otis, Rufus Choate and Wendell Phillips; of her men 
of letters, Edward Everett, Nathaniel Hawthorn and James 
Russell Lowell ; of her poets, Bryant, Longfellow and Whit- 
tier ; of her historians, Bancroft, Prescott and Motley ; of her 
philosophers, Jonathan Edwards, Ralph Waldo Emerson and 
William Ellery Channing ; of her generals, Greene, Knox and 
Putnam ; of her naval commanders, Hull, Perry and Porter ; of 
her discoverers and inventors, Morse, Whitney, and Morton ; 
of her philanthropists, Peabody, Slater and Rich. 

On a lower plane, but far above the common masses of 
men, have been the sons of toil who, from youth to manhood 
and from manhood to age have pursued their daily labor, sub- 
duing fields to culture, building towns and cities, accumulat- 
ing intelligence, establishing happy homes, and providing an 
easier lot in life for those who may come after them. These 
men, without complaint, with wonderful fidelity in the daily 
round of duty, have exhibited a courage and endurance worthy 
of all admiration. It is from the children of these men that 
you obtain recruits to carry on the great enterprises of life, and 
in times of public danger as well as in posts of private duty, 
here is an unfailing source for a supply of men who are ever 
ready to answer the call of their country to the field of honor 
for its defence. 

The wheels of Providence do not run backwards, nor do 
they run by chance. "There is a divinity which shapes our 
ends," a subtle influence which pervades all human conduct, and 



84 

works results superior to it. Our actions do not always tend to 
the end for which they are designed. The annexation of Texas 
was intended by its promoters to broaden the domain of human 
slavery. This act brought on the Mexican war. The treaty 
of Guadaloupe Hidalgo supervened, and by this treaty New 
Mexico, Arizona and California were annexed to the United 
States. There was a secret wrapped up in the bosom of Cali- 
fornia destined to defeat the designs of the promoters of these 
great enterprises. The secret came out. Gold was discovered 
there. New Englanders and the descendants of New Eng- 
landers made haste to the New Eldorado. This new territory 
arose at once to Statehood, and the spirit and inspiration of 
New England which animated its people made it a free state. 
Kansas, in the same interest, by violence, fraud and crime was 
sought to be brought into the union with the cloud of human 
bondage overhanging it ; but the descendants of the Puritans 
went there and forbid it. A good action never dies ; it passes 
into the sum of human conduct, and there does something 
towards leavening its mass. Slavery, maddened by its disap- 
pointments in reference to California and Kansas, struck the 
union. The blow recoiled upon the hand that gave it, and 
annihilated slavery. The price in blood and treasure paid by 
the nation for universal liberty, in which the sons of New 
England nobly spent their part, I will not enumerate, for the 
ashes have gathered over the coals of that struggle, and I will 
not disturb the slumbering embers. 

Men of New England claim that justice should be the aim 
and end of organized society, and that the hopes of the Puri- 
tans cannot be fully realized until civilization is carried forward^ 
where party shall be lost in country and creeds be merged in 
Christianity. Human slavery has been blotted out of our so- 
cial system, and the time has come when the spoils of ofifice 
shall be no longer an incentive to political action ; when pro- 
fessional politicians should be dismissed from employment ; 
when the equality of right in all men in spirit and in deed, be- 
fore the law, shall be acknowledged, and every man shall rec- 
ognize that by his allegiance to the state he is burdened with 
the duty of working for the public welfare, and, to this end let 
us stretch out our arms to their utmost tension to bridge any 



85 

chasms which may have been opened in the past between men 
who sincerely love our common country. 

Mind is ever active in proportion to its motive for action. 
The New Englander has ever been engaged in a contest with 
the forces of nature. The necessity for supporting physical 
existence constitutes the most powerful motive for exertion. 
Even the religion of the Puritans was an incentive to action; 
for by that he saw clearly that he had a heaven to gain and a 
hades to avoid. The virtues are taught in a Spartan school : 
coarse fare and a severe discipline are necessary to their high- 
est development. An unyielding soil and an inhospitable 
climate were to be overcome by the Puritans. The savage, 
liable to ambush him at his toil, made him cautious, and his 
encounters with the savage nerved him for the conflicts of life, 
and strengthened him to overcome the obstacles which ob- 
structed his progress. The example of the Puritans when 
their mother country cast them off, in their helplessness to 
shift for themselves, as being unfit for her nurture, inspired 
their descendants to resistance, when they exhibited strength 
and power, and that same mother manifested a disposition to 
swathe their limbs by limiting the scope of their toil and en- 
terprise and by forcing contributions from them to be expen- 
ded in the gratification of parental ambition, and by keeping 
them in a state of perpetual pupilage. To a resistance born of 
the cause of the exile of their fathers, and nurtured by the 
continued wrongs they had received at the hands of the mother 
country, quickened by the moral necessity for freedom upon 
them, with the fear of God and nothing else before them, they 
entered that unequal contest. 

The life of New England during every period of its history 
has been a life of conflict, and the results of those conflicts are 
recorded with their triumphs on the cultivated hill sides, the 
fertilized valleys, the happy homes, the busy workshops and 
cunning implements of toil, school houses, churches, colleges, 
and the varied means of ameliorating the conditions of the un- 
fortunate everywhere scattered over this section of the country. 
Then New England with a prodigal hand has sent forth her 
sons to build up states and empires of states like unto herself, 
Her enterprise and her capital have largely assisted in binding 
together the continent with hooks of steel, the Golden Gate 



86 

and Massachusetts Bay, and in other great pubhc enterprises. 
The foremost men in science, in art and in enterprise every- 
where over the land receive inspiration from the spirit and cul- 
ture of New England. 

Could our Pilgrim or Puritan fathers be rehabilitated on 
earth and be vouchsafed a vision of the land consecrated 
to liberty and humanity by their toil and suffering, and behold 
the progeny that has succeeded to the inheritance they left, a 
rapturous vision would be opened to them. The country they 
found a wilderness, in which they opened but here and there 
a field for culture and left it, is now changed. The savage no 
longer haunts the forest or lies in ambush to waylay the white 
man. The waterfalls have been arrested in their progress 
and pressed into the service of civilization ; and hamlets and 
villages of happy homes, with schoolhouses and churches, have 
been gathered about them. The forests have been hewn 
down; cultivated farms and comfortable farm houses have been 
located where they stood. Here and there a large city has 
grown up, and the population has been wonderfully multiplied, 
but the products of the earth and of human industry and all 
that goes to subserve the wants of man have increased beyond 
the growth of the population. 

We pause on the narrow isthmus of time, which separates 
the past from the future, to note our appreciation of the bless- 
ings that have come down to us from our New England ances- 
tors ; to hail the teeming millions who will fill our places in 
the coming time, and to lay aside for them the admonition 
that they cherish the memory and imitate the virtues and 
avoid the shortcomings of our forefathers ; that they be 
ready to receive new truths evolved from nature or revelation, 
and that they will seek to advance the human race in all of 
the arts which go to civilize mankind in the future, and pur- 
sue a course onward and upward, nearer and nearer to the 
millennial paradise from which our first parents fell. 



Brooklyn, February 4th, 1886. 

Hon. Benjamin D. Silliman. 
Dear Sir : 

We, the undersigned, Officers and Directors of The New 
England Society in this city, appreciating the great value of 
your services and the honor you have conferred upon the 
Society during the past six years as its President, beg leave to 
extend to you a cordial invitation to meet them at Dinner at 
The Brooklyn Club, Thursday, February i8th inst., at seven 
P. M. 

Sincerely yours, 

John Winslow, 

B. F. Tracy, 

C. E. Pratt, 
A. P. Putnam, 
Thomas S. Moore, 
Geo. B. Abbott, 
Nelson G. Carman, Jr., 
Hiram W. Hunt, 

J. Lester Keep, 
Charles N. Manchester, 
W. H. Williams, 
I Joseph F. Knapp, 
James S. Case, 
Ransom H. Thomas, 
A. S. Barnes, 
Stewart L. Woodford, 
Henry W. Slocum, 
Henry E. Pierrepont, 
W. H. Lyon, 
Geo. H. Fisher, 
Wm. B. Kendall, 
A. E. Lamb. 



56 Clinton Street, 
Brooklyn, Feb. 8th, 1886. 

Gentlemen : 

I am very grateful for your kindness in honoring me with 
an invitation to meet you at dinner on the i8th inst. 

I need not say that it would give me very great pleasure 
to do so, but a protracted and disheartening cold quite inca- 
pacitates me, and compels me to forego the privilege of being 
with you. 

We may well rejoice in the distinguished success of the 
New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, and on the 
good and great influence which it exercises, and is destined to 
continue. The principles and purposes, which we all have at 
heart, warrant us in believing that the Society will have a long, 
honorable and useful existence. As " truth is great and must 
prevail," we cannot err in adhering to, and inculcating the 
moral and political principles, to the triumph of which, our 
Pilgrim Fathers devoted their lives. 

Congratulating the Society on your devotion to its interests 
and aims, and with warmest personal regard, I am, gentlemen, 

Most sincerely yours, 

BENJ. D. SILLIMAN. 



Messrs. John Winslow, B. F. Tracy, C. E. Pratt, A. P. Putnam, 
Thomas S. Moore, George B. Abbott, Nelson G. Carman, 
Jr., Hiram W. Hunt, J. Lester Keep, Chas. N. Manchester, 
Wm. H. Williams, Joseph F. Knapp, James S. Case, R. H. 
Thomas, A. S. Barnes, Stewart L. Woodford, H. W. 
Slocum, Henry E. Pierrepont, Wm. H. Lyon, George H. 
Fisher, William B. Kendall, Albert E. Lamb. 



PROCEEDINGS 



Fifth Annual Meeting 



Fifth Annual Festival 



The New England Society 



IN THE CITY OF BROOKLYN, 



Including a paper read before the Society, November ig, 1884, by Rev. John 
W. Chadwick, on "Witches in Salem and Elsewhere," and a lecture 

DELIVERED AT THE FrIENDS' INSTITUTE, LONDON, ON THE i8TH OF 

January, 1866, by Benjamin Scott, F.R.A.S., on "The 
Pilgrim Fathers neither Puritans nor Persecutors." 



Officers, Directors, Council. Members, 
Standing Committees, 

AND 

By-Laws of the Society. 



CONTENTS. 



Objects of the Society, .......... 3 

Terms of Membership, .......... 3 

Applications for Membership, ......... 3 

Officers, ............ 4 

Directors, ............. 5 

Council, ............ 5 

Standing Committees. ..■.....■• 6 

Report of Fifth Annual Meeting, 7 

Proceedings at the Fifth Annual Festival, . . . . . • • n 

Menu, 12 

Address of Vice-President John Winslow, . . . . . • I3 

Speech of Gen. William T. Sherman, ........ i? 

Hon. Charles Francis Adams, Jr 20 

Prof. Theodore W. Dwight 3° 

" Gen. Horace Porter, ........ 37 

" Hon. James C. Carter, ....... 41 

Hon. Wm. W. Crapo 43 

Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage 47 

Hon. Calvin E. Pratt 50 

" Mayor Low, ......... 55 

Hon. John W. Hunter, 60 

Wm. Sullivan, 61 

Paper on " Witches in Salem and Elsewhere," ...... 63 

Lecture on " The Pilgrim Fathers neither Puritans nor Persecutors, . 83 

By-I-aws, I03 

Honorary Members, ........ 109 

Life Members 109 

Annual Members, ......-.••• no 

Meetings of the Society . . 115 

Form of Bequest, .......•••• 



11=, 



OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY. 



The New England Society in the City of Brooklyn is incorporated and 
organized, to commemorate the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers ; to encourage the 
study of New England history ; to establish a library, and to promote charity, 
good fellowship and social intercourse among its members. 



TERMS OF MEMBERSHIP. 



Admission Fee, $10.00 

Annual Dues, ....... 5.00 

Life Membership, besides Admissioti Fee, . 50.00 

Payable at Election, except Annual Dues , ivhich are payable in January of each year . 

Any member of the Society in good standing may become a Life Member on 
paying to the Treasurer the sum of fifty dollars ; or. on paying a sum which in 
addition to dues previously paid by him shall amount to fifty dollars, and thereafter 
such member shall be exempt from further payment of dues. 

Any male person of good moral character, who is a native or descendant of a 
native of any of the New England States, and who is eighteen years old or more 
is eligible. 

If in the judgment of the Board of Directors, they are in need of it, the widow 
or children of any deceased memlier shall receive from the funds of the Society, a 
sum equal to five times the amount such deceased member has paid to the Society. 

The friends of a deceased member are requested to give to the Historiographer 
early information of the time and place of his liirth and death, with brief incidents 
of his life for publication in our annual report. Members who change their address 
should give the Secretary early notice. 

^^ It is desirable to have all worthy gentlemen of New England descent 
residing in Brooklyn, become members of the Society. Members are requested 
to send applications of their friends for membership to the Secretary. 

Address. 

THOMAS S. MOORE, Recording Secretary. 

102 Broadway, New York. 



OFFICERS. 
1884-1885. 



President : 
BENJAMIN D. SILLIMAN. 



First Vice-President : 
JOHN WINSLOW. 



Second Vice-President : 
CALVIN E. PRATT. 



Treasurer : 
WILLIAM B. KENDALL. 



Recording Secretary : 
THOMAS S. MOORE. 



Corresponding Secretary : 
Rev. a. p. PUTNAM. 



Historiographer : 
STEPHEN B. NOYES. 



Librarian : 
Rev. W. H. WHITTEMORE. 



DIRECTORS. 



For One Year : 

John Winslow, Calvin E. Pratt, 

Asa W. Tenney. 

For Tivo Years : 

Benj. F. Tracy, A. S. Barnes, 

Henry W. Slocum. 

For Three Years : 

Benjamin D. Sii.liman, Hiram W. Hunt, 

George H. Fisher. 

For Four Years : 

William H. Lyon, William B. Kendall, 

Albert E. Lamb. 



COUNCIL. 



A. A. Low, 

Alexander M. White, 
S. B. Chittenden, 
Alfred F. Cross, 
Stewart L. Woodford, 
Henry Coffin, 
Charles Pratt, 
Henry E. Pierrepont, 
Charles L. Benedict, 
John N. Partridge, 



Nelson G. Carman, Jr. 
Charles E. West, 
Thomas H. Rodman, 
Augustus Storrs, 
Arthur Mathewson, 
D. L. Northrup, 
Henry Sanger, 
W. B. Dickerman. 
H. W. Maxwell, 
Seth Low, 



L. W. Manchester, 
Isaac H. Gary, Jr., 
H. H. Wheeler, 
Wm. a. White, 
W. R. Bunker, 
Darwin R. James, 
James R. Cowing, 
A. G. Barnes, 
Frederic Cromwell, 
H. E. Dodge. 



STANDING COMMITTEES. 



Finance : 

William H. Lyon, George H. Fisher, 

Albert E. Lamb. 



Charily : 

Benjamin F. Tracy, Henry W. Slocum, 

Asa W. Tenney. 



Invitations : 

Benjamin D. .Silliman, Rev. A. P. Putnam, 

John Winslow. 



Ann ua I Festiva I : 

Hiram W. Hunt, Albert E. Lamb, 

L. W. Winchester. 



Publications : 

John Winslow, George H. Fisher, 

Thomas S. Moore. 



THE FIFTH ANNUAL MEETING. 

In the absence of tlie President and of his Annual Report, the Vice-President 
stated in substance that the Society is in good condition and its iisefidness is 
continued. 

The number of members is four liundred and fifty-two, the balance in the 
Treasury $11,243.99. 

The Directors have reluctantly accepted the resignation of Mr. S. B. Noyes, 
as Secretary, offered by him because of his ill health. Mr. Thomas S. Moore has 
been appointed to take his place. 

On the 19th of November the Society held a general meeting in the Art Gallery, 
which was largely attended by the members and their families. An address was 
delivered by Rev. John W. Chadwick, whose subject was, " Witches of Salem and 
Elsewhere." The theme was very ably treated and made the text for graphic 
descriptions of times, scenes, and characters peculiar to New England in the early 
days. The next annual report will be enhanced by this address. 

Four of our members have died during the past year; the following brief sketches 
of their lives have been prepared. 



Charles Storrs was born in the town of Mansfield, Connecticut, January 
24th, 1822, died in the City of Brooklyn, September ist, 1884, and was buried in 
Mansfield, his native town. 

The Storr's pedigree is a prominent one in New England annals. Our deceased 
friend was much interested in genealogy, as shown by his attention to his own 
family pedigree. This "Stor" is an old Norse word indicating strength and 
authority. 

Mr. Storrs' first American ancestor was Samuel Storrs who emigrated to America 
in 1663, from Sutton-cum-Lound, Nottinghamshire, England. He came to Barn- 
stable, Massachusetts and removed thence to Mansfield, Connecticut, where he 
died April 13th, 1719. Among the descendants of this ancestor are the late Hon. 
Henry R. Storrs once an eminent member of Congress from the State of New 
York ; his brother, the late William L. Storrs, Chief Justice of Connecticut ; the 
Rev. R. S. Storrs, D.D., our well known and eminent townsman. 

Charles Storrs is sixth in descent from .Samuel Storrs. His father was Royal 
who was the son of Royal who was the son of Joseph who was the son of Samuel 
who was the eldest son of Samuel from Nottinghamshire. 

Royal Storrs, the father of our deceased friend, was a man of unusual ability 
and strict integrity. Charles Storrs was one of the most prominent founders of our 
New England Society in Brooklyn. He took an active part in its organization, 
was its second Vice-President and one of its Directors from the first to the time of 
his death. He was also a life member of our Historical Society, and a liberal 
contributor to its treasury. 

He was one of the first incorporators of the Hamilton Club, and a Director. 



in politics he was a Republican, and, though positive in his convictions, was 
broad and liberal. 

His early education was obtained from a district school where he was studious 
and industrious until his eighteenth year when he became a school teacher. 

When of age he entered into commercial pursuits and in December, 1854, com- 
menced business as a commission merchant on his own account in the City of New 
York, associating with him in the new firm of Storrs Brothers his two brothers, 
Augustus and Royal O. Storrs. 

When twenty-two and a half years of age he married, on the 4th of July, 1844, 
Miss Maryette M. Cook, of Coventry, Connecticut. 

For twenty five years, until 1879, Mr. Charles Storrs remained at the head of 
the firm and was eminently successful as a merchant. He attained a competency 
which, upon retiring from business, it was hoped by him and his friends he might 
live many years to enjoy. 

In 1866 Mr. Storrs made an extended European trip with some personal friends, 
visiting every country in Europe except Portugal, and afterward Egypt, Palestine, 
Syria, and other places in the Levant. Mr. Storrs always referred with pleasure to 
this instructive trip, which was beneficial to his health and in other ways. He also 
traveled extensively through this country, and among other places visited the 
Pacific Coast. 

He was a warm friend of the late Horace Greeley, and one of his executors. 
His services in settling the affairs of the Greeley estate were warmly appreciated by 
all who were interested. 

Charles Storrs was a liberal giver according to his means. The Congregational 
church in his native town has been largely provided for by him. He has also given 
the town a large cemetery and a fund for keeping it in good order. He erected m 
this cemetery two granite monuments for his father's family and his own, as well as 
several others in other parts of the town, to the memory of his early ancestors, 
especially one to Samuel Storrs, his first American ancestor. 

It is an interesting fact that Charles Storrs was the first to call the attention of 
the American public to the importance of having an Obelisk removed from Egypt 
to this country. He stated his views in the public press and offered to bear one- 
fiftieth part of the expense of its removal and proper erection in New York. 

Augustus Storrs who is a member of this Society and a resident of Brooklyn, 
some years ago presented to the State of Connecticut the land and buildings and 
an endowment fund to establish and maintain the Storrs Agricultural School at 
Mansfield, Conn. His brother Charles also felt a deep interest in this enterprise 
and contributed to it liberally, money and books. 

When Charles Storrs died the City of Brooklyn lost a good and public spirited 
citizen, the poor a kind and cheerful giver, his friends an agreeable and intelligent 
companion, and his family a devoted husband and father. 

John C. Perry was born at Forrestburg, Sullivan County, New York, April 
2lst, 1S32, and died in Brooklyn on the 14th day of April, 1884. 

In early life he entered Monticello Academy, and after an extended course of 
study entered upon the study of the law and was admitted to the Bar at the age of 
twenty-one years Three years later he was appointed Assistant District Attorney 
of Ulster County. In 1S57 he removed to Brooklyn and commenced practice in 
the City of New York. He became an active member of the Republican party in 
Brooklyn, and in 1S63 was elected a member of the Assembly, and was again elected 
the next year. In 1865 Mr. Perry was appointed Assistant United States District 
Attorney for the Eastern District by Hon. B. D. Silliman who was then the United 
States District Attorney. In 1871 Mr. Perry was elected State Senator from 
Brooklyn, and discharged the duties to the satisfaction of his constituents, but 
declined another nomination. In 1880 Mr. Perry was appointed counsel to the 
Brooklyn Police and Excise Department, which position he held until a short time 
before his death. In March, 1884, Mr. Perry was appointed by the President, Chief 
Justice of Wyoming Territory on the recommendation of nearly all the Judges and 
members of the Bar in his district. In view of his contemplated departure, a cordial 
reception and dinner was tendered to him by members of the Brooklyn Club. On the 
14th day of April, when he had nearly completed his arrangements for departure to 
W^yoming, he died, having been attacked with a fatal sickness in the street. On 



the i6th day of April there was a large meeting of the Bench and Bar in honor of 
his memory, when appropriate resolutions of respect and regret were adopted. 

The tributes paid to Mr. Perry at this meeting as well as the whole course of his 
life, testify to the fact that in all positions and relations, he was faithful and 
honorable. 

Nathan Thayer, youngest son of Joel Thayer and his wife Nancy Fuller 
Selden, whom he married at Windsor, Conn., in 1823, was born at Palmyra, Wayne 
Co., N. Y., October ist, 1S30. When quite a young man he removed to Buffalo, 
N. Y., where he engaged in the banking business. About the time of the breaking 
out of the war, he left Buffalo, for Brooklyn, N. Y., soon after attaining the posi- 
tion of Paymaster in the army, and at the close of the war was honorably discharged 
with the rank of Brevet Lieutenant Colonel. At the time of his death Mr. Thayer 
was one of the oldest members of the New York Stock Exchange, and in Brooklyn, 
where he resided for many years, he was well-known socially, as one of the Directors 
of the Oxford Club, and for the last two years a member of the New England 
Society. He took great interest in all the affairs of the Society and was very proud 
of his New England lineage. After a short illness, his death took place on Septem- 
ber 23d, 1884. 

The name of Thayer has been mentioned from time to time in the annals of 
England, but the first especial mention we find of it was when about five hundred 
years ago a coat-of-arms was conferred on Augustine Thayer of Thaydene, a small 
village in Essex about eighteen miles north of London. The ancestors of the 
Thayers in America came to this country about the year 1630. Two brothers 
Richard and Thomas Thayer, came to America from Braintree, Essex Co., England, 
settled in Massachusetts, and named their new town after the one they had left. As 
far as is known they were the first and only Thayers who ever came to America to 
settle and all of the present family of Thayers sprang from them. Little is known 
of the career of Thomas Thayer and scarcely more of that of Richard beyond the 
facts that he brought three children with him, born in England, and that he was 
admitted freeman in the year 1640. He died at Braintree, Mass., August 27th, 
1695. The Thayers have included many distinguished members in all the profes- 
sions, and departments of life ; among whom are Gen. Sylvanus Thayer one of the 
founders of West Point ; the grandfather of the subject of the present sketch. 
Captain Levi Thayer, who, at his country seat near Cambridge, Mass., entertained 
Lord Nelson while he was on a visit to the United States ; Mr. N. Thayer's father, 
one of the early business men of Buffalo, together with his twin brother Levi Thayer, 
contracted and built a large portion of the Erie Canal and ran the first line of canal 
packets. It was on their packet the Twin Brothers that Gov. DeWitt Clinton made 
his memorable trip, during which he mingled the waters of the Erie Canal with 
those of the Hudson River. The Thayer brothers also built the first steam elevator 
in Buffalo. Mr. Thayer's mother belonged to the well-known old New England 
family, the Seldens of Haddam Neck, Conn. The Seldens held a re-union at Say- 
brook, Conn., several years ago, and it was attended by not a few of our well- 
known men. They claim among their ancestors, John Selden of high literary fame, 
and such names as those of Chief Justice Waite, Judge Henry R. Selden of Roch- 
ester, N. Y., Dr. William Selden of Norfolk, Va., and the late President Nott of 
Union College, swell the list of distinguished men. 

Mr. Thayer was very happy in his domestic relations, was a devoted husband 
and a most affectionate father and faithful and consistent in all the affairs of an 
admirable and useful life. His wife and three children survive him, his eldest son 
being also a member of the Society. 

Edward A. Phelps, Jr., who was born in North Colebrook, Litchfield 
County, Connecticut, in 1840. came from a family distinguished in the history of 
Connecticut. His grandfather was Carrington Phelps, an officer in the Revolution- 
ary Army. His father is General Edward A. Phelps of North Colebrook. 

Mr. Phelps received his education in his native town and came to Brooklyn 
about twenty years ago, and began business in New York as a dealer in coffee and 
spices. He was afterward a member of the well-known firm of Pupke, Reid and 
Phelps. About two years ago he retired from business with a competency. 



He was a member of the Coffee, Produce and Petroleum Exchanges, and a 
director of the Law Telegraph Company. He was a life member of the Brooklyn 
Club; a member of the Coney Island Jockey Clulj and of the New England 
Society. He died in Brooklyn, September ii, 1884. 



On motion, Messrs. William H. Lyon, William B. Kendall, and Albert E. 
Lamb were nominated Directors for the ensuing four years, and having been voted 
for by ballot, were elected and their election duly declared by the Chairman. 

Adjourned. 

THOMAS S. MOORE, 

RecorJiug Secretary . 



Proceedings and Speeches 

AT THE 

FIFTH ANNUAL FESTIVAL 



HELD 



Saturday, December 20th, 1884, 

In commemoration of the Ttvo Hundred a?id Sixty-fourtJi Anniversary 
of the Landing of the Filg?-ims. 



The Fifth Annual Festival of The New England Society in the 
City of Brooklyn, was held in the Assembly Room of the Academy 
of Music, and in the Art Room adjoining, Saturday evening, 
December 20th, 1884. 

A Reception was held in the Art Room for about an hour, and at 
half-past six o'clock all present took their seats at the tables. 

The room and tables were decorated in the modern New Eng- 
land manner (for which see the reports of previous years.) 

Including the guests there were two hundred and thirty-five 
present. 

At the guests' table there were seated on the right of the Vice- 
President, who presided in the absence of the President, General 
W. T. Sherman, General Horace Porter, Hon. Wrn. W. Crapo, Hon. 
Calvin E. Pratt, and Hon. Seth Low, and on the left Hon. Charles 
Francis Adams, Jr., Hon. James C. Carter, Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage, 
Hon. Stewart L. Woodford, Hon. John W. Hunter, and William 
Sullivan. 

Grace was said by Rev. Frederick A. Farley, D.D. 



12 



MENU. 



Oysters. 

Soitps. 
Consomme, Reine. Green Turtle. 

Side Dishes. 
Bouchces of Sweetbreads. 

Fish. 
Bass, Joinville. Fried Smelts. 

Jiekve. 

Filet of Beef, with Mushrooms. 

Potatoes, Parisienne. 

Entre'es. 

Venison, Mashed Chestnuts. Artichokes, Sautes. 

Breast of Turkey, Celery Sauce. 

Terrapin, Maryland Style. 

Sorbet. 
Kirsch. Russian Cigarettes. 

Eoasts. 

Canvas-back Ducks. Quail. 

Lettuce Salad. 

Dessert. 

Cheese. Ice Cream. Fruits. 

Coffee. 



13 



ADDRESS BY HON. JOHN WINSLOW, 
First Vice-Presidext of the Society. 

Gentlemen of The Neiv England Society in the City of Brook- 
lyn, Guests and Friends : We have now reached the conclusion 
of the least interesting part of what belongs to this pleasant 
occasion, and are about to enjoy that feast of reason, thought 
and intellectual delight, without which no festival of New 
Englanders would be a complete success. Before proceeding 
further let us stop here for a moment to give expression to our 
profound regret, that domestic affliction compels the absence of 
our respected and much beloved President, the Hon. Benjamin 
D. Silliman. Without the formality of a toast in his honor, I give 
you health, happiness, many years and increased honors to our 
excellent friend Mr. Silliman. {Great applause and cheers.) 

Our Society is prosperous in its membership and finances; 
we have nearly 500 members and a fund in the treasury of 
$11,600. An aged member once asked me what advantage it 
was to him to continue his membership. My answer was that 
we have established the custom of giving our deceased mem- 
bers a good obituary notice and he had better hold on. He 
seemed cheerful over the prospect, and I have not heard of his 
resignation. {Laughter.) There may be another benefit to be 
gained by our members not often thought of: — it is illustrated 
perhaps by a statement that appears in the biography of the 
late celebrated Dr. Hodge of Princeton College. It is there 
stated that Dr. Hodge recorded in his autobiography a remi- 
niscence of Professor Lindsley, an enthusiastic Greek scholar, 
who assured his students that '' one of the best preparations for 
death was a thorough knowledge of Greek grammar." {Laugh- 
ter.) If Professor Lindsley was right, then may we not claim 
that another excellent preparation for that solemn event is to 
be a member of this Society ? especially in view not only of its 
wholesome moral influence but of the inevitable obituary 
notice. {Laughter.) 

This is an occasion of commemoration, " In Memoriam 
Majorum." The thought that inspires this gathering is com- 
memoration of the virtues and principles of the Pilgrim Fathers. 
Such a commemoration is a duty and a privilege, and honor- 
able to ourselves. Men commemorate events deemed of vast 



14 

importance in various ways. The monument on Bunker Hill 
keeps alive our grateful sense of the grand patriotism of our 
Fathers in resisting the enemies of home government. 

The monument in Washington erected in honor of the 
Father of his country is a beneficent influence and reminds 
our people of all races that Washington was the embodiment 
of the high qualities that most adorn and dignify human char- 
acter. 

So the magnificent monument, now near its completion at 
Plymouth, shall remind us and our children of the virtues of 
the Pilgrim Fathers whose influence for all that is best for 
humanity, is felt to-day throughout the world, wherever Chris- 
tian civilization is known. So, too, the splendid monument 
about to be uncovered in Central Park by our sister New Eng- 
land Society in New York, shall render a like service of com- 
memoration. {^Applause.) In this connection I may refer to 
the interesting fact that we have here to-night a piece of old 
Plymouth Rock — a recent gift to our Society from the Pilgrim 
Society of Plymouth, Mass. Longfellow said : " Plymouth 
Rock — The door-step into a world unknown — the corner-stone 
of a Nation." The rock, you know, is a bowlder, and like the 
pilgrims, an immigrant. We shall keep this fragment carefully 
and think of it tenderly. {Applause.) 

It is not by monuments alone that these memories may be 
perpetuated. It is effectively done every year by festivals 
such as this in various parts of the United States. Wherever 
the sons of New England shall gather to thus do honor to the 
Fathers, whether in the east or in the west, in the north or in 
the .south, a valuable service is rendered for good government, 
equal justice, and the preservation of Liberty in the Land. 
{Applause.) Let us believe that Carlyle was right when he 
said : " Look now to American Saxondom, and at that little 
fact of the sailing of the Mayflower, two hundred years ago. 
It was properly the beginning of America. There were strag- 
gling settlers in America before ; some material as of a body 
was there ; but the soul of it was this : Those poor men driven 
out of their own country, and not able to live in Holland, 
determined on settling in the new world. Black, untamed 
forests are there and wild, savage creatures, but not so cruel as 
a Star Chamber hangman. They clubbed their small means 



15 

together, hired a ship, the little Mayflower, and made ready 
and set sail. Ha ! these men, I think, had a work. The weak 
thing, weaker than a child, becomes strong if it be a true 
thing." {Applause.) 

The compact on the Mayflower was a good beginning of 
self-government in the Western World. It was a recognition 
of the fact that a self-respecting people may, and of right ought 
to be a self-governing people. James I, the first King of New 
England, was neither friend nor patron of the Pilgrims, nor of 
human rights. They struggled on for years without a charter 
and without royal favor. But they stood for principles, one of 
which was "government with due process of law, free from the 
abrupt violence of the soldier." {Applause.) 

One of the best assurances of the permanency of our free 
system of government is the Homes of our Country. The 
Pilgrim Fathers early took steps to establish homes and home 
firesides. Though temporarily living in common, it was not 
long before on the famous Leyden Street in Plymouth, dwell- 
ings were occupied by most of the nineteen Pilgrim families. 
Others of them, such as Captain Miles Standish and Elder 
Brewster, established homes in Duxbury, and Elder Cushman 
and his devoted Mary, in Kingston, and, if you will permit me 
to refer modestly to home traditions, the Winslows in Marsh- 
field near by. It is a circumstance of interest that the farm 
once owned and occupied by Governor Winslow was in later 
years owned and occupied by Daniel Webster. There is no 
part of the country where the home feeling is more deeply 
cherished than in New England. There the hymn of" Home, 
Sweet Home " is sung with profound sympathy and apprecia- 
tion. When the true New England boy leaves home to make 
his way in the world, his affections cling steadfastly to the old 
fireside and all its precious memories. {Applause.) 

The memory of the Pilgrim Fathers will be respected and 
held dear wherever morality, education, law and liberty are 
recognized and cherished. The " testimonies " of the Dutch 
Magistrates as to the character of the Pilgrims at their embark- 
ation for America is, according to Bradford, " They have lived 
among us now these twelve years, and we never had any suit 
or accusation against any of them." It is a mistake to suppose 
they were narrow and intolerant. They never persecuted or 



16 

punished a Witch, a Friend, or Roger WilHams. What others 
did in later years or in other colonies, after the Pilgrims were 
all dead and gone to heaven, does not concern us here and 
now. 

The Pilgrims tell us of " the wholesome counsel " they 
received from their distinguished and beloved Pastor Robin- 
son. The Pastor reminded them, referring to Luther and 
Calvin and their followers, that " God had not revealed his 
whole will to them, and were they now living (saith he) they 
would be as ready and willing to embrace further light as they 
had received." Robinson believed and said that more light 
would break forth from the word. 

It was in this generous catholic spirit of reverence and 
progress that the fathers made the compact on the Mayflower, 
and established the free institutions that to-day are beacon 
lights to the whole world. {Applause.) 

We have with us distinguished gentlemen, the guests who 
honor us by their presence, from whom we shall now all hear 
with great pleasure. But before calling on any speaker, I pro- 
pose to you a toast to which I am sure you will all gladly 
respond by filling your glasses and rising in your places: 

"The President of the United States." 

(After the toast had been drunk standing and in silence 
three cheers were given for President Arthur.) 

Mr. Winslow continued : 

Second Toast:— ''A CORDIAL WELCOME TO Generat, 
Sherman." 

When we hear distinguished names mentioned in the annals 
of literature, or statesmanship, or war, great deeds and great 
achievements come to our memories. To find such a name 
we need not look to-day to foreign lands. We have a name 
in our own country, and in our own time, of New England 
stock, which brings quickly to our memories great deeds in 
war for an imperilled Union; good citizenship in time of 
peace ; large intelligence in all his life-work, and above all, 
and through it all, an unquestioned loyalty to the best inter- 



17 

ests of our common country. {Applause^) I need not speak 
the name of General SHERMAN. 

(Great cheering and waving of handkerchiefs, and three 
hearty cheers for General Sherman, who replied as follows :) 

SPEECH OF GENERAL WILLIAM T. SHERMAN. 

Gentlemen of the New England Society in Brooklyn : When 
I left St. Louis night before last, in a cold, bleak, winter night, 
I thought of your Pilgrim Fathers. {Laughter) And as we 
came along and our iron became like glass, breaking and 
smashing and alarming us for our safety somewhat, delaying 
us along the route, first at Terre Haute and then at Pittsburgh, 
I came to the conclusion that I would escape this — I won't 
say infliction, for I assure you I enjoy all these occasions very, 
very much ; only I wish I could sit by and listen and not be 
compelled to speak, as you always make me do. 

But I come to Brooklyn with more than usual interest. It 
may not be known to you that I am an older Brooklynite than 
ninety-nine in one hundred in this audience. You can com- 
pare notes. In 1836, when a boy at West Point, I came and 
stayed about ten days with my uncle, Charles Hoyt, who occu- 
pied a house on the bluff at the foot of Remsen street, not far 
from here, only the spot was all grass fields. And I saw more 
of New York in those ten days than I have seen since in forty 
years. {Laughter) Whatever was to be seen, outside or inside 
of it, I think I took in. And so it was throughout my whole 
cadet career. Every summer I was permitted to come down 
and spend a week or ten days with my uncle's family, so that 
I became familiar with Brooklyn, imd therefore when I come 
back to you in my old age and visit you I feel that I come 
back to the friends of my youth. [Applause^ 

I was especially pleased with the delicate manner in which 
your toast was given me to-night, for all the way along the 
road I was wondering whether I had to speak to the old Army 
and Navy, that I think I have tortured to death. But you 
come to me with personal compliments and I feel it deeply, 
and thank you for the gracious manner in which you have 
received me, both on paper and by your applause. If I could 
fix your Anniversary in another month, and at another season 



18 

of the year — say in May or October — I think I would promise 
you an attendance for four or five years yet. But being in 
mid-winter, and being a father and a grand-father, and conse- 
quently looked up to at Christmas times for a great many 
things which you young men know nothing about {laughter), 
I cannot promise to be with you very often in person, though 
I assure you that as long as I live my heart will go out to you 
whenever I hear the name of the New England Society in the 
great City of Brooklyn. {Applause.) There is no necessity 
for rivalry with New York. You are one and the same people. 
You live under the same flag and laws, and breathe the same 
common air. You read the same books and worship at the 
same altar. You will be one great city. And that beautiful 
Bridge which I crossed this evening ! Every time I cross it I 
feel as if I were in some holy temple, for since the creation of 
the earth the hand of man has never wrought a more beautiful 
piece of work than the Brooklyn Bridge is to-night. {Loud 
applause.') Whether it pays two per cent., or three per cent., 
or five per cent, interest, is to me a mere nothing. The mere 
thought — the mere conception of the thought — is something 
so pure and so magnificent that I would banish all thoughts 
of profit. Every time I sit with my friend General Hancock 
on Governor's Island and look across at the beautiful stream 
called the East River — not a river at all, but an arm of the 
sea — and behold the lines of proportion, beauty, grace, strength 
and durability of this Bridge, I admire it more than the most 
beautiful pictures I have ever seen in the galleries of Florence, 
France or London. Gentlemen, since the creation of the 
world there have been great works of art : Solomon's Temple, 
that beautiful palace in Allahabad in India — we read of them 
all, and admire them. Then there are the Pyramids of Egypt. 
I myself went to Egypt to see the Suez Canal. It is a great 
work, and I give great praise to the engineer who conceived 
it and the men who supplied the money. Then there is the 
Mont Cenis Tunnel. But above everything, even our great 
Pacific Railroads, of which I am almost an idolator, I say that 
the Bridge over which I passed to-night surpasses every crea- 
tion of the human brain of which I have knowledge in books 
or fact. Therefore, gentlemen, whether you be New Yorkers 
or Brooklynites, it makes no difference to me — not even if you 



19 

are New Jerseyites [laughter), we are all under one flag, for we 
can tolerate but one on this continent. {Applause.) And so 
it is that where'er you go to-day that flag is the symbol of 
enterprise, of strength, and of durability which you Yankees 
first planted upon the continent of North America. With 
you the home, the little farm, the shop, the ship — everything 
which taught men that labor Avas honorable, and that brain and 
muscle made the man, not the acquirements of his ancestors, 
either of money or glory, but that man himself was the archi- 
tect of good. It is more glorious than anything ever con- 
ceived by the brain of any poet. I say it was with you that all 
these things originated. Therefore I say that the New Eng- 
land men who planted that idea first, whether at Plymouth 

Rock, or Providence, or Boston, or here in New York for it 

is common to all our country— planted the seed out of which 
has grown up that vast fabric which to-day we name the United 
States of America {cheers), whose flag embellishes your walls 
to-night, and for which we have all felt and thought so deeply, 
and for which we will continue to feel and think—aye, and for 
which we will fight, if necessary, and die, if need be." {Pro- 
longed cheer 1710.) 

Third Toast :—" The Day We Celebrate." 

Mr. Winslozv : To the next regular toast, "The Day we 
Celebrate," what name could more appropriately be invoked 
to respond than that of " Adams " ? The first American ances- 
tor of the Adams family, Henry Adams, must have been well 
acquainted with the Pilgrim Fathers. He came to Braintree 
in 1640, in the region of Plymouth, so we connect our friend 
back to acquaintance and association through his first Ameri- 
can ancestor with the Pilgrim Fathers. (Applause.) Then you 
know a descendant of his, John Adams, was the second Presi- 
dent of the United States, and that a descendant of the second 
President was the sixth President of the United States, and 
his son was active in public affairs before and when the War 
broke out, as a member of Congress, and in other positions. 
Later, when the trying time came, he was sent to the Court of 
St. James as our Minister, there to defend and uphold the rights 
of our imperilled Union, and most loyally and ably he did it. I 
will not speak of our guest, except to say that he shows the 



20 

pertinacity of the Adams stock and is in charge of important 
interests in the prime of life. I have now great pleasure in 
introducing the Hon. CHARLES FRANCIS Adams, Jr., of Massa- 
chusetts. 

(When the applause which followed his introduction sub- 
sided Mr. Adams replied as follows : ) 

SPEECH OF HON. CHARLES FRANCLS ADAMS, JR. 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: In Hawthorne's 
" Old Home " there is an amusing description of his sensations 
at an English state dinner when, in his official capacity of 
American Consul, he was first called upon to make a speech. 
He describes how it by degrees dawned upon him that the 
Lord Mayor, at whose table he was, had an eye to him in cer- 
tain introductory remarks, and he says : 

"I rapped upon my mind ; it gave forth a hollow sound, 
being absolutely empty of appropriate ideas." 

Such were very much my own sensations when, a few days 
ago, I received a notice on behalf of your Invitation Commit- 
tee, signed by a name familiar enough on " Forefathers' Day," 
the honored name of Winslow, telling me that I would be 
expected to respond this evening to the sentiment of " The 
Day we Celebrate." Like Hawthorne, I " rapped upon my 
mind, and it gave forth a hollow sound." And indeed there 
are some subjects upon which I think it may fairly be agreed 
the final word has been spoken. Certainly, if there is anything 
in relation to the day which has brought us together which 
remains unuttered, I am not the fortunate man destined this 
evening to clothe it in words. As is fit and proper for one of 
the innumerable descendants of John Alden and Priscilla Mul- 
lens, through whom I feel that I might with perfect confidence 
claim cousinship with every man or woman at this table, — as 
befits, I say, one so descended, I yield to none in my rever- 
ence for the day. It is the New England passover ; our feast 
of unleavened bread, which we keep throughout all generations. 
And I am even ready to say that in the great book of human 
events, the day upon which the Pilgrim Fathers landed on 
Plymouth Rock equals, if it does not surpass in importance, 
that day of wrath when at midnight, the Lord smote all the 



21 

first born in the land of Egypt ; and the children of Israel, six 
hundred thousand in number, rose up and journeyed from 
Rameses to Succoth, and the Lord caused the sea to go back 
by a strong East wind, and the children of Israel walked upon 
dry land in the midst of the sea ; and the waters were a wall 
unto them on their right hand, and on their left. 

When I have said that in my opinion the landing of the 
little band of storm-tossed exiles on the Plymouth shore was 
an event in human history not less momentous than the exo- 
dus from Egypt, what more remains for me to say? Clearly 
nothing. I must either take my seat, or follow my own devices 
into fresh fields and pastures new. I am going to do the latter ; 
and so, if I cannot answer expectations, I shall at least give 
you the benefit of a surprise. I propose to declare my abso- 
lute independence of the sentiment assigned me, and wander 
off into a by-path of my own, in which you have no choice but 
to go with me. 

I stand here this evening, a son of New England, coming 
directly from the old hearth-stone, but talking to New Eng- 
land's children gathered about a common table in what was, 
to our fathers, a strange and distant land. In the minds of 
such among you as have heard of me at all I am doubtless 
associated not with memories of the past, but with that rail- 
road system which is so peculiarly a thing of the present. 
What possible connection is there between railroads and the 
day we celebrate ? In vain have I sought to find any. There 
was no peg here on which I could hang a speech. And yet, 
while we have all heard of the way in which the Pilgrim 
Fathers lived, — of their daily lives, their scanty food, their 
lowly homes, the stern battles which they had to fight both 
with savages and a sterile soil, — there are not many, I imag- 
ine, who have heard of how they journeyed to and fro in the 
land. 

From Boston I have to-day come on to New York. You 
have all often made the journey. I passed six hours in an 
arm-chair in a luxurious drawing-room on wheels. Leaving 
my home after one meal, I reached my journey's end before I 
felt the need of another. Now, I propose this evening to invite 
you to make this familiar journey not in my company, but in 
company with one of our ancestors. You will find the lady 



to whom I shall introduce you a pleasant traveling compan- 
ion, and she will carry you back into another world than ours. 
But first let me make a passing reference to one of the 
fathers, the Rev. William Thompson, the first clergyman of 
that town of Braintree, since called Quincy where I live, and 
which has, in the more recent times, furnished an eminent 
divine to the Brooklyn pulpit. Mr. Thompson came to New 
York in 1642 by what is now the familiar Newport route. I 
imagine that he was the first Braintree man who ever set foot 
in Brooklyn. Nor did he come to your city by any volition of 
his own. He was on his way to Virginia, to preach the gos- 
pel to the white heathen of that benighted region, but we have 
no diaiy of the journey. We only know that, going first to 
Newport he thence, after a long delay, being wind-bound, got 
passage to New York, or New Amsterdam, as it was then 
called, and on his way met with a misadventure which illus- 
trates both the trials and the piety of the time. Cotton Mather 
has recorded the incident in his " Magnalia." As the mission- 
aries were passing through that place, in the language of the 
Rev. Thomas Weld, "called by seamen and in the map. Hell 
Gate," their boat was swept upon the rocks, and so damaged 
that they barely succeeded in reaching the neighboring shore. 
Here Cotton Mather picks them up, dripping we may believe 
like drowned rats, and in characteristic verse says of Thomp- 
son, that 

Upon a ledge of craggy rocks near stav'd, 

His Bible in his bosom, sav'd. 

The Bible the best of cordial to his heart, 

"Come floods, come flames," cry'd he, "We'll never part." 

But it is not the Rev. William Thompson who is to be our 
traveling companion this evening ; although it may not be 
uninteresting to mention the fact that a journey to Virginia in 
those days occupied three months ; a time ample for one of us 
to circle the globe in. But passing from him, I will next intro- 
duce to you Madam Sarah Knight of Boston. She was called 
" Madam " because she kept a childs' school ; and among her 
pupils, by the way, was a certain Benjamin Franklin, " a name 
not unknown in the Revolution," as Danton said of himself. 
In 1704, Madam Knight, then living in Boston, had occasion 



33 

to go to New Haven, and thence to New York. She went 
over almost exactly the route which I have traveled to-day. 
That is, leaving Boston, she went by the way of Dedham, 
Providence and New Haven to New York. Of her trip she 
fortunately kept a careful diary which, I fancy, not many of 
you have ever heard of. It enables us to make the journey 
day by day with her, riding by her side, sitting down with her 
at meals, and accompanying her even into her bed-room I 
propose to give a brief abstract of it. 

Leaving Boston about 3 o'clock in the afternoon of October 
2d, 1704, being accompanied by her kinsman, a shop-keeper of 
Charlestown, she went as far as Dedham, ten miles, where she 
had hoped to meet the Western post, as it was called, which 
then set out once a fortnight, the riders going as far as Say- 
brook, and there exchanging mails with riders from New York. 
Reaching Dedham before dark, she went to the house of the 
Rev. Mr. Belcher, the minister of the town, until evening, in 
hopes that the post rider would join her there. But, as he did 
not, she concluded to go to Billings's tavern, some twelve 
miles further on her route, and Madame Belcher accompanied 
her to the Dedham tavern, where she hoped to find a guide. 
After a good deal of bickering she succeeded in making a bar- 
gain with John, the hostess's son, who agreed to accompany 
her to Billingses for " half a piece of eight and a dram." The 
dram, she says, she gave him " in hand to bind the bargain." 
Starting out with John, she goes on, " When we had rid about 
an hour we came into a thick swamp, which, by reason of a 
great fog, very much startled me, it being now very dark. . . 
A little after we left the swamp, we came to Billingses, where 
I was to lodge. Here," she adds, " I paid honest John with 
money and dram according to contract, and dismissed him, 
and prayed Miss (the daughter of the landlady) to show me 
where I must lodge. She conducted me to a parlor in a little 
back lean-to, which was almost filled with the bedstead, which 
was so high I was forced to climb on a chair to get up to the 
wretched bed that lay on it ; on which having stretched my 
tired limbs and lay'd my head on a sad-colored pillow, I began 
to think on the transactions of the past day." 

The next morning at 8 she started out, this time with the 
post-rider, and proceeded on her journey. This is the descrip- 



24 

tion of her meal at the point where the Western post met the 
Eastern post, and exchanged letters. 

" Here, having called for something to eat, the woman 
brought in a twisted thing like a cable, but something whiter; 
and laying it on the board, tugged for life to bring it into a 
capacity to spread ; which having with great pains accom- 
plished, she served in a dish of pork and cabbage, I suppose 
the remains of dinner. The sauce was a deep purple, which I 
thought was boiled in her dye kettle ; the bread was Indian, 
and everything on the table service agreeable to these. I, 
being hungry, got a little down ; but my stomach was soon 
cloyed, and what cabbage I swallowed served me for a cud the 
whole day after." 

Paying the ordinary for herself and the post-rider, about 3 
o'clock she went on with her third guide, who, she says, " rode 
very hard ; and having crossed Providence Ferry, we came to a 
river which they generally ride through. But 1 dare not ven- 
ture ; so the post got a lad and canoe to carry me to t'other 
side and he rid through and led my horse. The canoe was 
very small and shallow, so that when we were in she seemed 
ready to take in water, which greatly terrified me, and caused 
me to be very circumspect, sitting with my hands fast on each 
side, my eyes steady, not daring so much as to lodge my 
tongue a hair's breadth more on one side of my mouth than 
t'other, nor so much as think on Lot's wife, for a wry thought 
would have overset our wherry ; but was soon put out of this 
pain by feeling the canoe on shore, which I as soon almost 
saluted with my feet ; and rewarding my sculler, again mounted 
and made the best of our way forwards." 

It was fourteen miles to the next stage where she was to 
lodge, and it was near sunset. Her guide told her that on the 
way they would be forced to ford a bad river, which was so 
fierce a horse could hardly stem it ; but it was narrow and they 
would soon be over. This terrified good Madam Knight 
greatly, and she went on, as she says, " tormenting herself 
with blackest ideas of her approaching fate." Presently, it 
grew so dark that she could not see her guide when at any dis- 
tance from her, which added to her terror. "Thus, absolutely 
lost in thought, and dying with the very thought of drowning, 
I come up with the post, which I did not see till even with his 



25 

horse ; he told me he stopped for me ; and we rode on very 
dehberately a few paces, when we entered a thicket of trees 
and shrubs, and I perceived by the horse's going we were on 
the descent of a hill, which, as we come nearer the bottom, 
'twas totally dark with the trees that surrounded it. But I 
knew by the going of the horse we had entered the water, 
which my guide told me was the hazardous river he had told 
me of ; and he, riding up close to my side, bid me not fear — 
we should be over immediately. I now rallied all the courage 
I was mistress of, knowing that I must either venture my fate 
of drowning, or be left like the children in the wood. So, as 
the post bid me, I gave reins to my nag; and sitting as steady 
as just before in the canoe, in a few minutes got safe to the 
other side, which he told me was the Narragansett country." 

Note here, I beg of you, how much this sounds like Bun- 
yan. We seem to be accompanying the Pilgrims in their 
progress to the House beautiful. But returning to Madam 
Knight, she says, " We found great difficulty in traveling, the 
way being very narrow, and on each side the trees and bushes 
gave us very unpleasant welcome with their branches and 
bows, which we could not avoid, it being so exceeding dark. 
My guide, as before, so now, put on harder than I, with my 
weary bones, could follow ; so left me and the way behind 
him." 

Presently, coming to the foot of a hill, the travelers found 
great difficulty in ascending it. But when they got to the top 
Madam Knight was cheered by rays of moon-light. "The 
raptures which the sight of that fair planet produced in me" 
she adds, " caused me, for the moment, to forget my present 
weariness and past toils," and presently she was roused by the 
post's sounding his horn, " which assured me he was arrived at 
the stage, where we were to lodge ; and that music was then 
most musical and agreeable to me." 

Being come to Mr. Haven's, at Haven's tavern, now North 
Kingston, Mrs. Knight was "very civilly received, and courte- 
ously entertained in a clean comfortable house ; and the good 
woman was very active in helping off my riding clothes, and 
then asked what I would eat." After supper, she says, " I 
betook me to my apartment, which was a little room parted 
from the kitchen by a single board partition ; where, after I 



26 

had noted the occurrences of the past day, I went to bed, 
which, though pretty hard, yet neat and handsome. But I 
could get no sleep, because of the clamor of some of the 
town topers in the next room, who were entered into a strong 
debate concerning the significance of the name of their country, 
(viz.) Narragansett," and she goes on, "They (the disputants) 
kept calling for t'other gill, which, while they were swallowing, 
was some intermission ; but presently, like oil to fire, increased 
the flame. I set my candle on a chest by the bed side, and 
sitting up, fell to my old way of composing my resentments, 
in the following manner: 

" I ask thy aid, O potent rum ! 

To charm these wrangling topers dumb. 

Thou hast their giddy brains possessed — 

The man confounded with the beast — 

And I, poor I, can get no rest. 

Intoxicate them with thy fumes: 

O still their tongues till morning comes." 

The next day was the 4th, and about 4 o'clock in the morn- 
ing (it was October, and therefore long before daylight) Madam 
Knight set off for Kingston, this time with a French doctor in 
company ; and she says, " He and the post put on very furi- 
ously, so that I could not keep up with them, only as now and 
then they stopped till they see me. This road was poorly fur- 
nished with accommodations for travellers, so that we were 
forced to ride twenty-two miles by the post's account, but 
nearer thirty by mine, before we could bait so much as our 
horses, which I exceeding complained of." 

They got a dinner, or a substitute therefor, in Charlestown, 
and proceeding thence, through the Narragansett country, 
about one o'clock in the afternoon came to Paukataug river, 
which Madam Knight describes as " about two hundred paces 
over, and now very high, and no way over to t'other side but 
this. I dared not venture to ride through, my courage at best 
in such cases but small, and now at the lowest ebb, by reason 
of my weary, very weary, hungry and uneasy circumstances. 
So taking leave of my company, though with no little reluct- 
ance that 1 could not proceed with them on my journey, 
stopped at a little cottage just by the river to wait the waters 
falling, which the old man that lived there said would be in a 



oir 



little time, and he would conduct me safe over. This little 
hut was one of the wretchedest I ever saw a habitation for human 
creatures. It was supported with shores enclosed with clap- 
boards, laid on lengthways, and so much asunder that the light 
came through everywhere ; the door tied on with a cord in the 
place of hinges ; the floor the bare earth ; no windows but 
such as the thin covering afforded, nor any furniture but a bed 
with a glass bottle hanging at the head on't ; an earthen cup, 
a small pewter basin, a board with sticks to stand on instead of 
a table, and a block or two in the corner instead of chairs. 
The family were the old man, his wife and two children ; all 
and every part being the picture of poverty." 

Presently, the old man's son-in-law, whom Madam Knight 
describes as " an Indian-like animal," came to the door, and, 
sitting down, pulled out a pipe, " and fell to sucking like a 
calf, for near a quarter of an hour. At length the old man 
said, how does Sarah do? who, I understood, was the wretch's 
wife and daughter to the old man : he replied — as well as can 
be expected, etc. So I remembered the old say, and supposed 
I knew Sarah's case. But he being, as I understood, going 
over the river, as ugly as he was, I was glad to ask him to 
show me the way to Saxtons, at Stonington ; which he promis- 
ing, I ventured over with the old man's assistance ; who having 
rewarded to content, with my tattertailed guide, I rid on very 
slowly through Stoningtown, where the road was very stony 
and uneven. I asked the fellow, as we went, divers questions 
of the place and way, &c. I being arrived at my country Sax- 
ton's at Stonington, was very well accommodated both as to 
victuals and lodging, the only good of which I had found since 
my setting out." Here she passed the night. Her guide, the 
post-man, had proceeded on his way, so the next day she set 
forward with a man named Polly and his daughter Jemima, a 
girl of 1 8, reaching New London Ferry at about 7 in the even- 
ing. This they passed with great difficulty. " The boat tossed 
exceedingly, and our horses capered at a very surprising rate 
and set us all in a fright." 

Getting at last safely across, they presently arrived at the 
house of Mrs. Prentice in New London, where Madam Knight 
parted with her companions, and lodged at the house of the 
Rev. Gordon Saltonstall, minister of the town. The next day, 



28 

the 6th, being the fourth of her journey, she got up early, 
wanting to hire somebody to go with her to New Haven, 
" being in great perplexity at the thought of proceeding alone; 
which my most hospitable entertainer observing, himself went, 
and soon returned with a young gentleman of the town, who 
he could confide in to go with me ;" and about 8 in the morn- 
ing, with Mr. Joshua Wheeler, for so her guide was named, 
Madam Knight set out toward Seabrook, crossing the Niantic 
and reaching Saybrook Ferry about 2 in the afternoon. Here 
she dined ; and the description she gives of her dinner is cer- 
tainly to the point. She says, " Landlady came in with her 
hair about her ears, and hands full pay scratching. She told 
us she had some mutton which she would broil, which I was 
glad to hear ; but I suppose forgot to wash her scratchers ; in 
a little time she brought it in ; but it being pickled, and my 
guide said it smelt strong of head sauce, we left it, and paid 
sixpence apiece for our dinners which was only smell. So we 
put forward with all speed, and about 7 at night came to Kil- 
lingsworth, and were tolerably well with travellers' fare, and 
lodged there that night." 

The next day, she reached New Haven at 2 o'clock in the 
afternoon, and of the place she gives an amusing description, 
for she remained there until December 6th, in all two months. 
Then she says: " Being well recruited and rested after my jour- 
ney, my business lying unfinished by some concerns at New 
York depending thereupon, my kinsman, Mr. Thomas Trow- 
bridge of New Haven, must needs take a journey there before 
it could be accomplished, I resolved to go there in company 
with him, and a man of the town which I engaged to wait on me 
there. Accordingly, December 6 we set out from New Haven, 
and about 1 1 same morning came to Stratford Ferry ; which 
crossing, about two miles on the other side baited our horses 
and would have eat a morsel ourselves, but the pumpkin and 
Indian mixed bread had such an aspect, and the bare-legged 
punch so awkward or rather awful a sound, that we left both, 
and proceeded forward, and about 7 at night came to Fairfield, 
where we met with good entertainment and lodged." Early 
the next morning the travelers set forward to Norwalk, where 
they arrived about noon, and had a dinner of " fried venison, 
very savoury." Leaving this place, they rode until 9 at night. 



29 

when they reached their lodging for the night, kept by a French 
family. " Here being very hungry I desired a fricasee which 
the French-undertaking, managed so contrary to my notions 
of cooking, that I hastened to bed supperless ; and being 
showed the way up a pair of stairs which had such a narrow 
passage that I had almost stopped by the bulk of my body, 
but arriving at my apartment found it to be a little lento cham- 
ber furnished amongst other rubbish with a high bed and a 
low one, a long table, a bench and a bottomless chair, — little 
Miss went to scratch up my kennell which rustled as if she had 
been in the barn amongst the husks, and suppose such was the 
contents of the tickin — nevertheless being exceeding weary, 
down I laid my poor carcass (never more tired) and found my 
covering as scanty as my bed was hard. Anon I heard another 
rustling noise in the room — called to know the matter — Little 
Miss said she was making a bed for the men ; who, when they 
were in bed, complained their legs lay out of it by reason of 
its shortness — my poor bones complained bitterly not being 
used to such lodgings, and so did the man who was with us ; 
and poor I made but one groan which was from the time I 
went to bed to the time I riz, which was about 3 in the morn- 
ing, setting up by the fire till light, and having discharged our 
ordinary which was as dear as if we had had better fare, — we 
took our leave of Monsier and about 7 in the morn came to 
New Rochell a French town, where we had a good break- 
fast. And in the strength of that about an hour before sunset 
got to York." 

It was now the 9th of December and accordingly more than 
two full months since Madam Knight had left her home in 
Boston. Of the good lady's description of New York I have 
not time to speak. It is fresh and amusing reading. With a 
New England eye, she passed many criticisms upon the houses, 
the men and women, and the society ; especially does she 
dwell upon the sleigh-rides, saying that it is their great Winter 
diversion ; " and they drive three or four miles out of town, 
where they have houses of entertainment, at a place called 
The Bowery." Leaving New York on Thursday, December 
2 1st, and going eastward by the way of Stamford and New 
Haven, Madam Knight again tarried for a time at New Haven, 
finally reaching her home in Boston in safety on the 3d of 



30 

March, having been absent in all five months. She closes by 
expressing her gratitude to her " Great Benefactor for thus 
graciously carrying forth and returning in safety his unworthy 
hand-nnaid." 

Such was a journey from New York to Boston one hundred 
and eighty years ago. Such were the means of conveyance, 
such the hotels, such the food, and such the resting-places. 
And of this particular journey, there remained for many years 
a curious memorial, in the form of a pane of glass upon which 
was scratched with a diamond these words, with which both 
my description of Madam Knight's old-time journey and my 
own wholly inappropriate response may not inappropriately 
close : 

" Through many toils and many frights 
1 have returned, poor Sarah Knights, 
Over great rocks and many stones 

God has preserved from fractured bones." 



The Chairman. — It was expected the fourth regular toast, 

" No Law without Liberty ; No Liberty without 

Law," 

would be responded to by Professor THEODORE W. DwiGHT, 
of Columbia College Law School, but he is not able to attend 
because of a severe cold, much to the regret of all. Professor 
DwiGHT has kindly sent in, by request, a copy of his speech, 
which is the following : 

SPEECH OF PROF. THEODORE W. DWIGHT. 

I am asked to speak on the themes of " Law without Liberty 
and Liberty without Law." 

This is at all times a great and important topic, but pecu- 
liarly appropriate on " Forefathers' Day," for, above all other 
things, their experience in this direction was the vital thing 
that brought them here. 

It was the peculiarity of the English kings, from William 
the Conqueror down to their time, that, with slight exceptions, 
all their despotic and oppressive deeds were done under color 
of law. They knew how to give to confiscation and rapine the 



31 

semblance of legality. That was a part of their Norman finesse 
and cunning. The Stuart family ruling when the Mayflower 
came away were not of true Scotch origin but rather Normans 
of the more despicable kind, short sighted and pedantic, arbi- 
trary and addicted to technical law. They loved to hamper 
their subjects with the most irritating and vexatious restric- 
tions, interfering needlessly with all the petty affairs of life. 
Listen to a few of their tyrannical regulations. 

All of the goldsmiths of London, then a rising class and, as 
an old chronicler informs us, then beginning to make " a glori- 
ous show," were required to concentrate their shops in a 
row in a single street, Cheapside. All inferior buildings must 
be torn down and their occupants removed, by force if neces- 
sary. This would delight the eyes of courtiers and noble ladies 
who could survey in one harmonious view the beauty of these 
establishments and not have their eyes offended by the pres- 
ence of inferior things. 

At another time, a royal order was issued that the men and 
ladies of rank must leave the city and retire to their country 
homes and " keep hospitality." If they hesitated they were 
to be brought into court for trial. There is still extant a long 
criminal information containing several hundred names of gen- 
tlemen and ladies bunched together, whose crime consisted in 
declining to live at certain times in their country residences. 
Again, no person on riding a horse could use snaffles but he 
must use bits. No house builder was allowed to divide a house 
into several dwellings. To build an apartment house would 
then have been a violation of a royal command, entailing pros- 
ecution. Again, one who was in the presence of a great 
judicial officer must take off his hat when the officer left the 
room, and was liable to proceedings, whether he knew that he 
was leaving the room or not. He was bound to know it. One 
Mr. Bellasis was imprisoned for a month for not taking off his 
hat, though his back was turned to the Lord President of the 
tribunal, and did not know that he was going out, and was, 
moreover, required to make an abject apology. Again, no one 
must ride in a hackney coach, unless he wanted to go at least 
three miles. He must then go to the owner's stable and look it 
up as hackney coaches were not allowed to stand in the streets. 
They were an eyesore to noble eyes. 



32 

It was also quite a serious business for a gentleman to keep 
his private carriage, for he could only do so under the con- 
dition that he kept four able-bodied horses ready at a mo- 
ment's warning for the King's use to be driven or destroyed 
in his service. Thus the royal hand was seen in the parlor and 
the stable, in the store of the merchant, and the house of the 
mechanic, oppressive with its weight and disgusting with its 
trivialities. 

Now go with me a little while to the courts. We will visit 
the highest and most august, held in a lofty chamber with its 
ceiling adorned with stars. We will be there early in the 
morning, say at five o'clock, to get standing room, for the 
court will open say at eight and there will be a fashionable and 
jostling crowd. There you will see the great dignitary of the 
Church, the Archbishop of Canterbury, sitting on his judg- 
ment seat in a criminal court, dispensing so-called justice. 
There will be also the high judges of the great courts as well 
as powerful nobles. If you look around, you will miss the 
plain average men that we call jurors, but yet if you admire 
show and ofificial display, it is truly a magnificent tribunal. 
Let us listen to what is going on. They have this morning 
a merchant before them, a vigorous and independent looking 
man in middle life. He is an importer of foreign goods and 
has had some vexatious dealings with the Custom House. In 
his impetuous way he had made a hot remark to some acquaint- 
ance that " the merchants in London were more screwed and 
wrung than those in foreign parts." This remark was reported 
and he is now on trial for it. This was deemed a high impu- 
tation on the Government. After a hearing these grave 
judges fined him a sum equivalent to $40,000 of our money 
and required a most submissive apology. This the stout- 
hearted man resisted with an avalanche of Scripture texts 
which he hurled in the teeth of the judges and which may 
still be read. But in vain. We may see him, if we care to, 
twenty-six years later, then an old man of seventy, striving to 
have the money which he had paid into the public treasury on 
this iniquitous charge returned to him. His application failed 
and then he died. 

If you choose to go with me another morning, we will find 
a divine of Scotch birth, a doctor of divinity, a man of learn- 



33 

ing and ability, but somewhat intemperate in speech. In his 
unpolished sermons he had called the Bishops "ravens and 
magpies " and had even said that the Queen of Charles I. was 
"the daughter of Heth." What that meant I do not know, 
but " Heth," I presume, was some biblical worthy or unworthy. 
At any rate, the talkative Doctor had a lesson from the court 
which he never forgot. After the hearing, the judges had a 
consultation in which they said, " We will whip him ; we will 
place him in the pillory as a mark for the missiles of unlicensed 
boys ; we will disfigure his nose and remove one of his ears ; 
then we will have an iron heated red hot and brand with it his 
cheek, with the letters S. S. (Sower of Sedition), and when a 
week is past and while his wounds are festering we will bring 
him up and do the same thing again." 

When the good Doctor had this announced to him, he 
thought it time to leave England, and he did for the time 
escape. In the end to no avail. England was too small. 
They ransacked the little island and found him and his name 
was added to the crowed of sufferers for indulging in the lux- 
ury of liberty of speech. 

We will go but once more, and witness the trial of one of 
my own profession, William Prynne, of the English bar. No 
one could write more abundantly or talk more intemperately 
than this ancient lawyer, fluttering everywhere and restlessly 
jn legal wig and gown. He had written and published a most 
dreary book, "A Scourge," as he called it, of stage players. 
Prynne was a true ascetic. He hated Christmas, loathed bon- 
fires, and despised May poles. " He could not bear to see a 
house draped up in ivy." He was a Puritan of the Puritans, 
insisted that Christ was a Puritan and stoutly maintained that 
the Sabbath commenced at precisely six o'clock on Saturday 
evening, He called the bishops "silk and satin divines" and 
affirmed that stage plays were more read than the choicest 
sermons. There was probably a good deal more matter of this 
sort and of a highly distasteful kind. Prynne had a pen dipped 
in gall and made free use of it. When the court got him they 
made sharp work with him. As he was a lawyer, the Lord 
Chief Justice of the Common Pleas was chosen to pronounce 
the judgment. His fine was equivalent to $100,000 of our 
money at present value — his sentence perpetual imprisonment 



34 

with the usual loss of ears and without pen, ink or paper, 
except, as the judge scornfully added, "that he mjght have 
some pretty prayer book to pray to God to forgive his sins." 
The court also had before them his poor publisher, who kept 
his printing press hidden in the byways and worked under the 
friendly cover of the night. They found him out, and added 
the withering sentence that he must abandon his business and 
publish books no more. 

But, thank God, these vile judgments, designed to maim, 
to cripple and to destroy, produced no permanent effect. In 
eight short years the voice of a long-oppressed and outraged 
people was thundered in legislative halls. Prynne had his pen, 
ink and paper again. He sought out the same old brave pub- 
lisher, Michael Sparkes. I esteem it a high piece of good for- 
tune that I have daily before me one of those ancient books. 
I keep it before my desk as a badge of liberty. It is rudely 
printed, with no signs of the printer's art. Its contents are 
passionate but now most unreadable. I can never look at its 
dingy and time-soiled covers without seeming to see dripping 
from it the blood of the twice-mangled and martyred ears of 
William Prynne— martyred, it is true, not in the cause of 
religion, but in the cause of free speech and at a judgment 
seat where "law without liberty" was administered. And yet 
such men as Prynne show that even law without liberty can not 
effectually tame a lofty human soul. 

It was owing, as I have said, largely to such an administra- 
tion of law, both in the civil and ecclesiastical courts where the 
dreaded sentence of excommunication deprived men of civil 
rights and made them outlaws, that our New England fore- 
fathers came here. It is why we are here to-night. They 
would not remain in a land where there was law without 
liberty with no existing prospect of a change. They never 
sought to free themselves from law. They had an inborn 
English respect for it. What they longed for was an ideal 
system of law, which by a cherished fable, they supposed was 
the law of their remote ancesters — a law allied with the largest 
individual and social freedom, where righteousness and peace 
met and kissed each other. 

Their loyal and honorable disposition was highly distasteful 
to the men in power in England, for not twenty years had 



60 



elapsed before the royal or Privy Council, in a public order, 
asserted " the factious disposition of the people of New Eng- 
land and that they were unfit and unworthy of any support 
or countenance in respect of their great disorder and want of 
good government." 

It is a highly interesting and instructive fact that those who 
remained in England have worked out for themselves and their 
children a government as free and as stable in its freedom as 
those who came away. Law without liberty in the end leads 
up to law with liberty. The violence and oppression which it 
engenders lead to reaction. There are in it the seeds of a new 
order and development. Law has its seat in the bosom of 
God ; and it ever strives to rise on the wings of a well-poised 
liberty. When these are clipped it for the time grovels ; but 
they will grow again, and then law seeks its native seat. Have 
we the well-regulated writ of Jiabeas corpus? So have they. 
Have we freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of 
conscience? So have they. Have we great institutions secur- 
ing these and other precious rights? So have they. By a 
different and even more toilsome road, bordered with prisons 
and tracked with blood, they have come to the same end. In 
view of their sad experience they inserted in their famous Bill 
of Rights, the sentence that excessive fines should not be 
imposed nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. In view 
of the same experience, suffered before our fathers parted com- 
pany with the old English patriots, the very same zvords were 
inserted by our statesmen in the United States Constitution. 

Without liberty, the great forces of society are in a con- 
dition of unstable equilibrium. They contend and war for the 
mastery. With it, they are at rest. The great lesson then is, 
that good men should never despair when the law is perverted 
to vile ends. In the last resort, institutional law and constitu- 
tional law are the legitimate and crowned successors of an ille- 
gitimate " law without liberty." 

Now, what need be said of " liberty without law" — the sec- 
ond part of my theme ? This in fact has no existence — there 
is no such thing. I am asked to consider society without insti- 
tutions — with no checks upon despotism — with no imperial or 
beneficent power standing between oppressors and their vic- 
tims. The picture is too horrible — the eye turns away and 



36 

refuses to regard it much more to scrutinize it. It is the case 
of license for the strong — terror and despair for the weak — 
unlimited danger for both. David with his sling is just as 
dangerous to the giant as the giant is dangerous to David with 
his heavy arm and foot. In this wild state of things there is 
no semblance of forms of justice. It existed in the reign of 
Stephen in England when there was no law and men said that 
" Christ and his Saints were asleep and all the castles were 
filled with devils." It exists in a measure to-day in the wilds 
of Montana where the horse thief is captured by the cow-boy, 
and the virgin oak is dishonored by the pendant ruffian who 
died at the hands of his fellows, without the intervention of a 
court of justice or the ministration of a priest. Such is the 
outcome of a mighty struggle between contending individuals 
instead of social forces, with no issue on either side but swift 
and informal death. 

Liberty or freedom without law was seen in its naked ter- 
rors in the middle ages when the theory prevailed that on 
the death of the king the law died also, to be revived again 
at the accession of his successor. During the dreadful inter- 
val there were no courts, no sheriff with his retinue, no gallows 
at command. The whipping post was destroyed and such jails 
as there were stood open. There was no defense for female 
honor, no rescue for theft, no retribution for murder. The 
timid fled to cover like hares and the strong hastened to their 
castles there with bolt and lifted drawbridge to defy as well 
they could the terrible outlaw. When the new king was pro- 
claimed peace seemed, as it were, to come down from heaven 
as a bride to adorn him. The robber returned to his den and the 
murderer fled the country. It is the glory of our modern civ- 
ilization that law is not only beneficent but continuous. It has 
no intermissions. Like the blessed sunshine it not only shines 
every day but all day, and is most useful and fructifying when 
its light is so gentle and unvarying that men scarcely recog- 
nize its existence. 

Out of every such chaos as I have adverted to law will in the 
end emerge allied with liberty. Nothing else agrees with the 
nature of man and the final purposes of God. Under this rule of 
Christian evolution, every unlawful force tending to disorganize 
society must in the end disappear. Lynch law and Mormon law 



37 

must go the way marked out by the final extinction of slave law. 
Liberty will not associate with barbarism — it will have no consort 
with the sons of Belial. Nay, it will rise against them — it will 
spurn them with its foot — it will trample them out of existence. 
Many of our most prominent citizens take a deep interest 
in the erection in a conspicuous place in our harbor, crowning 
a majestic pedestal, of a magnificent statue of liberty lifting a 
flaming torch enlightening mankind. This is well. But stand- 
ing by itself it is an imperfect conception. The question 
comes home, Whither is the human race marching, and for 
what purpose docs it need light ? The answer is, it needs to be 
lighted to the judgment seat of an impartial justice. There 
should then in due time be a companion statue of Justice, with 
her scales weighing all things, even the claims of liberty itself, 
determining whether it is a bastard liberty or a true and 
glorious liberty, the precious inheritance of freemen made free 
by the truth, liberty united with law, " now and forever, one 
and inseparable." 

Fifth toast : — "The New England Soldier." 

The Chairman : I will not stop to say anything of our good 
friend who is to respond to this, except to tell him most cor- 
dially how glad we all are to see him. I present General 
Horace Porter. (Cheers.) 

SPEECH OF general PORTER. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen : When I find myself here, 
indulging in this somewhat hilarious festival, and attempting 
to respond to this toast, being no longer in the Army, and not 
even a New Englander, I feel somewhat like that shiftless 
sailor who was in everybody's mess, and on nobody's watch. 
{Laughter.) The Duke of Wellington, when philosophizing on 
the army, once made the very sage remark that an army trav- 
els principally upon its belly. If this be so, we are somewhat 
prepared to understand what an extraordinary march an army 
would be capable of performing if it consisted of the New 
Englanders who surround these tables to-night ! (Great laugh- 
ter^ I don't know how the rest of you feel, but as for me. 



38 

when the last dish was passed round to me — I had already par- 
taken of so hearty and bountiful a diet — I was compelled in 
refusing it to exclaim, in the historic language of Martin 
Luther, when he repudiated the Diet of Worms, " God help 
me ! I can take no other course !" {Great laughter^ But, 
passing to the subject on which I am expected to speak, I 
knew the New England soldier when he made his maiden 
effort in warfare in the last war. I knew him when he first 
began to learn that bayonets are bad things to sit down on, 
and bad things to be tossed up on ; when he was lamenting, 
with Hudibras : 

" Ah, me, the perils that environ 
The men that meddle with cold iron." 

I have seen him in all the trying positions of the war. I have 
seen him in the typical Virginia village, where education and 
industry are harmoniously blended, where they had boasted 
that there was a ten-horse power saw-mill with a circular saw, 
and a one-horse school with an upright teacher. {Laughter and 
applause.) But that saw had rusted, that school-teacher had 
been conscripted into the Confederate army, and under the 
influence of the Yankee soldier the village was transformed 
into a camp. The New England soldier was drummed up in 
the morning, drummed to his meals — if he happened to have 
any — and drummed to bed at night. He did not grumble, he 
did not complain, but devoutly wished that the next engage- 
ment might leave him in the happy condition of Sir John 
Moore at Corunna, when " Not a drum was heard." {Laughter.) 
They were lively boys, however. They believed it was better 
to have the pot boil over than not to boil at all. 1 remember 
when they started down with us to move out into Virginia. 
It was in the days when to move into Virginia meant some- 
thing ; when in summer the dust was so thick you couldn't 
see to move, and in winter the mud was so thick you couldn't 
move anywhere. {Laughter.) They were fired with the laud- 
able ambition of crushing the rebellion out of Virginia, and 
they succeeded : in less than a year they had crushed it clear 
' up into Pennsylvania ! {Great laughter.) Now it was probably 
the faculty gained in that movement that gave the Army of 
the Potomac the notion of turning its face northward, and of 
keeping on until finally, last June, it brought up here in Brook- 



39 

lyn. That army started north to visit New England, to return 
some of the visits that New Englanders had paid it in the 
field. But coming to Brooklyn, and ascertaining the dimen- 
sions of this New England Society, it said, " Why should we go 
farther in search of New England?" It stopped — went no 
farther. It was never more impressed with the force of that 
passage of Scripture, " It is better to be a doorkeeper in the 
house . . . than to dwell in tents." {Laughter.) Well, 
the New England soldier was ready to enlist for three years. 
He was ready at the end of that time to re-enlist and remain 
during the war. He seemed ready at all times to do almost 
anything that would not take him back to New England. 
{LaiigJiter.) I saw the New England soldier when he had his 
first baptism, at the first Bull Run. It was not such a baptism 
as would gladden the heart of a first-class Hard-shell Baptist. 
There was too much fire and too little water about it. {LaugJi- 
ter.) That army knew that the objective point of that cam- 
paign was the Capitol, but somehow got the cities of Washing- 
ton and Richmond mixed up in their minds and marched on 
Washington ! [Laughte?-.) The officers lost confidence in the 
staying powers of their men and the men lost confidence in 
their officers and went to Washington to report their inca- 
pacity. There were members of Congress in that army, who 
suddenly remembered that they had left a great deal of unfin- 
ished business at Washington. They were not the kind of 
men to forget their legislative duties. They were early struck 
with the idea that they were too young to die. {Laughter.) 
There were men in that cavalry that had never been on the 
outside of a horse before. Their officers placed them in their 
saddles carefully, giving them the advice giving by Joseph to 
his brethren, " not to fall out by the way." {Great laughter.) 
With the fingers of one hand entangled in the mane of their 
horse, the other twisted in his tail, and their eyes fixed upon 
the dome of the capitol at Washington, they passed the day in 
the exhilarating but irritating pastime of pounding new sad- 
dles. {Laughter.) If they were raw recruits when they started, 
they were much worse when they arrived there. As to the 
members of Congress in that column we never heard that their 
elections had been contested, but it was observed that for 
weeks after they were unable to take their seats. {Laughter.) 



16 

But, Mr. President, having indulged me so far, let me, before 
sitting down, say one word in all earnestness. While we may 
be permitted here to point out the grotesque side of the Yan- 
kee's character, his life in the field was one of terrible earnest- 
ness. Beneath the ready laughter that made privation light 
there was that bravery of heart which no dangers could discour- 
age, no perils could daunt. They were a living illustration of 
the truth of Shakespeare's words, " Much danger makes great 
hearts most resolute." They exhibited a shoulder-to-shoulder 
courage which was born only of that discipline which comes 
from superior intelligence. They were men that taught the 
world that bayonets could think. When the captain fell at the 
head of his company, the private in the ranks was ready to 
step forth and take his place. They were men who never 
turned their backs upon a friend in peace nor upon a foe in 
war. We of other states have good reason to recollect the 
New England soldier. Not a battery commander that did not 
feel his heart go lighter and his guns a little safer when he 
heard that the battery was to be supported by a New England 
regiment. {Applause}) They were always ready to give us the 
true comrades' touch-elbow in the wild advance ; to give cheer 
answering to cheer when the bugle sounded the glad notes of 
victory. They seemed to be inspired with the spirit of sturdy 
old Miles Standish himself; the same spirit that enabled their 
forefathers to conquer the wilderness ; the same spirit that 
sent their ships out to whiten distant seas, to pluck the tropi- 
cal fruits of the South ; and but recently that same spirit has 
sent an expedition to the ice fields of the Arctic regions and 
planted our flag nearer the Pole than it had been before planted 
by any nation or any age, and planted there by a heroic expe- 
dition, commanded by a gallant Massachusetts soldier. Take 
him for all in all, in whatever position he has been placed, the 
New England soldier has never failed to prove himself the 
worthy son of the worthy sire from whom he had descended. 
And if my remarks require an illustration, I have only to-night 
to point you to this grandest living type of a pure New Eng- 
land soldier, the distinguished General who sits on my left. 
[General Sherman.] [Great applause.) And if I read aright 
the hearts of those who sit around these tables to-night, I 
know that I speak the sentiments of every true man here when 



u 

I say to this eminent guest in the words of that tribute of 
Shakespeare's, " Sir, we thank God for you, and so may our 
parishioners. Our sons have been well tutored by you. You 
are a good member of the commonwealth." {Great applause.) 

Sixth toast : — " NEW ENGLAND THEN AND Now." 

Mr. Wiuslow : In introducing the distinguished gentleman 
who is to respond to this toast, I will say no more of him than 
this : that if he presents the case of " New England Then and 
Now " as ably, forcibly and brilliantly as he presents causes in 
the courts, it will be all right with "Then and Now." I have 
the pleasure of introducing the Hon. James C. Carter, of 
New York. {Applause.') 

speech of HON. JAMES C. CARTER. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen : I feel the influence of some-' 
what mingling diffidence in rising to address your Society in 
Brooklyn, for I have never been able till now to part altogether 
with a certain feeling of animosity growing out of your organi- 
zation. Identified for many years with what I may call the 
parent society on the other side of the river, sharing in its 
labors, wearing some of its honors and jealous of its renown, I 
confess that I looked upon the enterprise of the establishing 
of this Society with some degree of alarm. I viewed it as a 
sort of secession, a kind of rebellion, and could not find suffi- 
cient justice for it. I could not see that you had been oppressed 
as our fore-fathers were. You were able to worship God accord- 
ing to the dictates of your own conscience, I believed, and I 
did not see why you should imitate the embarkation, get into 
a new Mayflower, come over here and plant a colony in the 
wilderness of Long Island. But if it was a rebellion, you have 
exhibited that justification which must everywhere be accepted 
— success. {Applause.) A distinguished English statesman, 
speaking of the late Rebellion, arguing that it was a great suc- 
cess, exclaimed of the people of the South : " They have cre- 
ated a nation." You may not have created a nation, but you 
have created — and how can I help admitting it, in the full blaze 
of this beautiful scene — a fully equipped New England Society. 

You have invited me, Mr. Chairman, to speak to the toast 
'* New England Then and Now," but I know you don't expect 



42 

me to accept the invitation. I am too well acquainted with 
the customs of New England dinners ever to speak to the toast 
that has been assigned you ; and to attempt to give a history 
of New England in five minutes is a task altogether beyond 
my powers. Nor shall I attempt the partial task of painting 
New England as it was. That has been done a thousand times 
before, and in what varied colors has that picture been painted ! 
What of admiration on the one hand, and of detestation on 
the other, has not been imputed to our Pilgrim Fathers? Oh, 
that we had a true picture of it ! Oh, that the photographer's 
art had been known 250 years ago, and that I might now pro- 
duce and hold out before you, painted by the sun, our Fathers 
as they lived ! The cabin of the Mayflower, the landing on 
Plymouth Rock, the features of Carver, Standish and his com- 
pany — what a set of pictures, could they now be produced, 
would these be to hang upon our walls ! {Applause.) 

But perhaps I may be allowed to indulge in a single serious 
thought suggested by the subject assigned to me, and a 
thought which has often come to my mind, and that is, why 
this stern and relentless power whose achievements we cele- 
brate to-night — that power which in England broke down the 
tyranny of the Court and erected the Commonwealth ; that 
power which is so often manifested — why is it that it so soon 
seemed to pass away and be submerged by the rising tide of 
selfishness and ease, even in the reign of the second Charles? 
Why did it seem to break away and die so soon in a wave 
along the New England shore? That great English author, 
Thomas Carlyle, has in one of his works anticipated a sort of 
answer to that question. He says, as to why Puritanism did 
not succeed, " My Dear Friend, Puritanism was not the con- 
crete theory of this immense universe." Nor was it, ''nor is 
it, nor will human affairs in the long run ever be permanently 
regulated by it. It was an exceptional phenomenon, it is an 
exceptional phenomenon. It is a medicine for sick states, a 
restorative for decaying civilization. When vice and corrup- 
tion in society and in the state engendered by the long preva- 
lence of ease, and selfishness, and luxury have reached a point 
beyond which they can be no longer endured, wealth and cor- 
ruption towering on the one side, destitution and misery shrink- 
ing on the other; irresponsible tyranny in places of power, and 



'43 

hypocrisy in the altar, at such times a set of men will rise, as they 
did rise, drawing their inspiration from deeper sources, reassert- 
ing in the face of all dangers the everlasting principles of Lib- 
erty and Equality ; who will recognize the living truth that all 
men have a common, divine origin, and a common immortal 
destiny. Who will hear resounding in their ears the direct and 
immediate commands of the Most High, drowning all other 
voices, drawing on their hearts a self-denying radius, and seek- 
ing from the ruins of false institutions to bring about a nearer 
approach to a divine kingdom. This is Puritanism. Fortunate 
the state, fortunate the nation, that preserves within its bosom 
the seeds of such a purification, which can thus enable itself 
to escape the dangers and perils of anarchy. {Great applause}) 

Seventh toast ; — " Old Colony." 

Mr. Winsloiv : The gentleman who will respond to this 
toast has honorably represented the Old Colony in Congress 
several terms, and I am sure he will represent her acceptably 
here. I have the pleasure of introducing the Hon. WiLLlAM 
W. Crapo, of New Bedford. 

SPEECH OF HON. WM. W. CRAPO. 

Mr. President : You celebrate Forefathers' Day in such a 
royal way that although a son of Old Colony by birth, lineage 
and descent, I find it difificult to realize the fact. 

To most of this company the New England home is a 
reminiscence, bright, sparkling, delicious ; the cherished mem- 
ory of ancestral virtue. When the voyagers of the Mayflower 
dropped anchor in Provincetown harbor, deliberating whether 
to seek the Hudson, as had been their intention, they were 
deterred by shoals and breakers, making their passage one of 
unusual peril. The Pilgrims were not timid, but their children 
have been more venturesome. They have braved not only the 
dangers of the voyage but the still greater dangers of the 
snares and pitfalls, the shoals and breakers of the great me- 
tropolis. 

It is needless to speculate on the causes which have brought 
here so many of the brightest and bravest and best of the sons 
of New England. It may have been the outcropping of that 



44 

restless spirit which led to the establishing of the early colony. 
It may have been the allurement of the glittering prizes in 
trade, in commerce, in letters, in politics and in social life. It 
may have been that ever present and uncontrolable desire of 
the New Englander to make the world better, to scatter the 
blessings and to offer to all the benefits that brought them 
here. Elder Gushing, when asked why he and his fellow Pil- 
grims came to Plymouth, answered, " Because the heathen can- 
not come to us, we must go to them." But whatever the 
motive the New Englanders are here, powerful in numbers and 
influence. 

The institutions, the activities, the mental and moral con- 
victions of a great community are marked by their energy and 
intelligence, by their enthusiasm and their steadfastness. They 
have done a good work, and perhaps I may venture to assert, 
looking about to-night, that they have been well paid for it. 
{^LaugJitcr.^ 

The Old Colony, for which you ask me to respond, regards 
with interest your yearly tributes to its founding and the testi- 
mony to its historic greatness. Yet the dwellers in Old Colony 
are a little sensitive at the way in which the Pilgrims are con- 
founded with the Puritans who landed at Salem. This indis- 
criminate interchange of Pilgrim and Puritan annoys them 
because they claim that there was a difference in the method, 
purpose and surrounding of the colonies worthy of remembrance. 

It is the boast of Plymouth that the contract signed in the 
cabin of the Mayflower was the basis of civil government ; that 
it was the plan upon which was erected our structure of civil 
and religious liberty and the foundations of a new and better 
civilization. Next to this the people of Old Colony boast of 
the advance of the religious colonies. While the Puritans 
regarded heresy as a deadly sin, and at times were betrayed 
into excesses of persecution, the Pilgrims were more tolerant 
in their practices and more liberal in their feelings. It is true 
that religious toleration at Plymouth was not absolute nor per- 
fect, but it was a cardinal principle, exercised in advance of the 
age. When Roger Williams was driven out of Salem the Pil- 
grims sheltered him and protected him from offensive treat- 
ment, but at the same time suggested to him the propriety of 
his movint^ on to the farther side of the boundaries of the 



45 

Colony. The Pilgrims believed in compulsory religion, as did 
others in those days, and when the early settlers of Dartmouth 
refused to pay the church rates imposed by the authorities at 
Plymouth, claiming the right to select their own ministers and 
regulate their own religious exercises, they were met with 
fines, distraint of their cattle and distraint of their persons. 
In their unfaltering assertion of perfect liberty in all matters of 
religious concern the struggle involved the whole question of 
the complete separation of Church and State ; and although 
little mention has been made of it in the histories of that period, 
the story as told in the manuscript records of the old Town is 
brilliant and exciting. The struggle was a long and stubborn 
one. With persistent tenacity on the one side, and dogged 
resistance on the other, it continued until Plymouth and Mas- 
sachusetts Bay were merged into one Colony. It was settled 
in 1722, when Dartmouth ordered ^100 raised for the support 
of ministers to be appointed by the Court. Not only did the 
town refuse to comply with the order, but voted to raise by 
town rate £yoo to resist it. These men were boldly defiant 
when liberty of conscience, and perfect freedom of worship, 
were involved. Their fidelity to a great principle was an exhi- 
bition of heroic earnestness. It was a struggle between earnest 
men. And if on either side, or upon both sides, they appear 
to have been harsh and intolerant, as all men do who are greatly 
in earnest, it must be placed to their credit that they mani- 
fested a strength of purpose that developed the mental and 
moral forces which were to overcome the bigotry and ignor- 
ance of centuries. If at times the views of these men should 
seem to us narrow or rude, we can explain it as the Pilgrims 
did their streets and lots : " We make our streets narrow and 
our lots small," says the local Plymouth historian, " because 
we have not the strength to take care of more." As they 
gained strength they outgrew their limitations, and the advance 
to the freest exercise of conscience and the freest thought came 
not from outside pressure but from the recusance within the 
Old Colony. Out of their courage, sacrifice and devotion there 
was evolved the government not irreligious, but non-religious, 
without power to interfere by law with the opinions of people, 
but with the simple duty to restrain the vicious and to punish 
the wicked. The Pilgrims believed in themselves, and none 



46 

the less so because others did not believe in them. By pure, 
natural self-esteem they believed in liberty, in religion, in equal 
justice, in education, and with high character and upright life 
they labored for their attainment. 

The duty rests upon us to improve and bring to perfection 
that work, not as an abstraction, nor as an inspiration, but a,s 
a settled purpose. 

And now, while New England has been faithful to the trust 
committed to it, while it has abated nothing in zeal or earnest- 
ness and that love of liberty and order which was its inherit- 
ance, and while it has adhered to the high thinking — if not the 
plain living — of the Fathers, yet it has lost its leading position 
in wealth, numbers and political power. At the first Presi- 
dential election New England had 38 votes ; nearly one-third 
in all the electoral college. Her population at that time was 
more than one-quarter of all the people of the Republic. At 
the recent election New England cast the same number, 38 
votes, but it was less than one-tenth of the whole. The State 
of New York alone — upon the counting of whose vote a few 
weeks since the people waited with anxiety, since upon the 
narrow margin of a few ballots was to be determined the suc- 
cess or defeat of great parties, and the continuance or change 
of administration of the foremost nation on the earth — has 
nearly equal political power and even greater population. 
While New England has not made or shown any positive 
decline, still the marvelous growth and expansion outside of 
her borders has lowered her relative position. But you will 
not say that her influence has decayed. 

You may boast that New York is greater and stronger than 
New England, but you cannot deny your New England origin, 
nor disparage the traditions, virtues and the inspiration that go 
with it. {Applause}) 

Eighth toast : — " The Embarkation at Delfthaven." 

Mr. Winslozv : It would be difficult to find a pulpit orator 
better fitted by genius to respond to this toast than the gen- 
tleman who has been invited to do so. It is with great pleas- 
ure that 1 present the Rev. Dr. Talmage. {^Applause}) 



47 



SPEECH OF REV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE. 

From what I have heard to-night I am persuaded that I 
shall never get over the misfortune of not having been born in 
New England. {Applause.) I have been struggling against this 
misfortune for many years. I emigrated from New Jersey at 
an early period of my life and am on my way to New England, 
having got as far as New York. {Laughter.) I have one 
hereditary alleviation in the fact that my remote ancestors in 
getting to the other end of Long Island crossed through Con- 
necticut and I have always thought that, from my fondness for 
pumpkin pies and other New England symptoms, during that 
quick transit I got a touch of Yankeedom in my composition. 
But my calamity in not being born in New England is offset 
by your calamity in not having been born in New York. The 
fact is that the combination of the two bloods, Yankee and 
Dutch, is better than either alone. There is no man in the 
world like the one descended from the Connecticut Yankee on 
the one hand and a New York Dutchman on the other. That 
is royal blood, {applause) — the Yankee in his nature saying 
" Go ahead I" while the Dutch in his blood says, " Be prudent 
while you go ahead !" The salvation of many of you New 
Englanders has been in the fact that you married New York 
or New Jersey wives. You see I believe in blood, honest blood, 
good ancestral blood. If we had started life with as bad blood 
as some people have been cursed with, instead of being in this 
illustrious company we would have all been either in State 
prison or the poor-house. New Englanders, I congratulate 
you on an ancestry distinguished for their virtue. {Applause.) 

I returned this afternoon from a five-thousand mile journey 
in the West and South and I found the presence and work of 
New Englanders at every step of the way, their books in every 
library, their energy in every enterprise, their factories on every 
river and their inventions in every machine shop. The invent- 
iveness of the Yankee is an unquestioned characteristic. The 
philosophy of it is easy. The Pilgrim Fathers landed not in a 
soft climate where men have but to open their mouth and bananas 
and oranges drop into it and the blue curtain of the sky is suffi- 
cient roof, but in a rigorous clime, and they had to invent stoves 
to drive out the cold and invent shuttles to weave artificial 



48 

warmth and invent agricultural implements to conquer the rocky 
soil. A race flung out on a climate where the thermometer makes 
frequent excursion below zero must invent or die. The conse- 
quence is that every Yankee is born with a machine shop in his 
head. {Latighter.) At five years of age he begins to whittle, and 
by the manner in which he does this you may form a very correct 
idea as to what will be his mechanical success. If he keep a 
sharp knife and whittle the stick down to a needle's point you 
may know that the boy will be a smooth, careful mechanic and 
that he will be sharp in his insight into all possibilities of 
machinery. If he gouge the stick and the wood fly off not in 
thin shavings but in chunks, you may conclude he will be a 
rough workman and he will spoil many a cornice, split many a 
door and leave the mark of his clumsiness on many a poorly 
turned bannister. If in whittling he hack his fingers every 
now and then and run long splinters under the nail, you may 
know that he will be a reckless man, blowing up people with 
boilers and crushing his journeymen under rafters. Indeed, 
there is no hope for the New Englander who cannot whittle 
well. {Laughter.) I congratulate your people on their invent- 
iveness. 

I may also be permitted to say that I admire the religion 
of your fathers and mothers, though that religion often has 
been criticised for its asperities. When Pastor Robinson 
spread abroad both hands in prayer at the embarkation from 
Delfthaven, God put into his one hand religious liberty and 
into the other free government, and the Puritan never disgraced 
either. {Applause.) The Mayflower was the Ark which out- 
rode the deluge of oppression and made Plymouth Rock its 
Ararat. Most of the small wits have tried their hand on the 
Puritan Sunday and the Puritan faith. All I have to say is 
that if your children under modern religious looseness turn out 
as well as your fathers' children turned out under the Puritan 
rigidity, it will be a matter of congratulation. So I imagine 
that, as the world gets better, it will be found swinging not so 
much toward the Parisian or Berlin Sabbath as toward the 
Sunday of your Puritan ancestors. I do not think that the 
severe religious discipline to which you gentlemen of New 
England were subjected ever spoiled you. Indeed I think that 
if your fathers and mothers had had given you a little more 



49 

Sunday and a few more spankings you would have been even 
better than you are now. We all pride ourselves on our liber- 
ality. You do and I do. But liberality may be overdone. 
Better not be so liberal that we give away the attributes of God 
and the Ten Commandments and other people's pocket-books. 
The sterling and invincible and consecrated people that your 
fathers and mothers were could have been produced by nothing 
save old-fashioned Puritanism. The modern namby-pamby 
twaddling stuff called religion, which is only a sentimental 
mush and molasses {laughter), never produced the fibre that 
could stand persecution and martyrdom. It would not require 
a fiery stake like that of Oxford or Brussels market place to 
overcome such a religionist. One handful of pine shavings and 
a lucifer match would make him run and swear he never heard 
of religion. I congratulate you, gentlemen, on an ancestry that 
had a religion with backbone in it, and every day you ought to 
thank God that you came from a clime that to this day feels 
the intense religious convictions of Dr. Bellamy, Miles Stand- 
ish and John Winslow, the latter of the illustrious family of 
our popular townsman by that name, presiding at this meet- 
ing. {Applause^ 

While at these New England dinners we celebrate the vir- 
tues of the heroes and the heroines of 1620, I will speak an 
appreciative word of the intermediate New Englanders, say of 
1820, 1830 and 1840, the men who with hard fists earned bread 
for your boyhood days and the women who with gentle hand 
and foot rocked your cradle and sang to you the pathetic 
nursery song. The winter of 1820 was just as severe as the 
winter of 1620. The Mayflower was no more shaken of the 
storm than the fishing boat in which your father earned his 
living off Nantucket or Portsmouth or Martha's Vineyard, and 
the winds that howled around your childhood's home were just 
as cruel as those that shrieked through the rigging of the craft 
from Delfthaven. The grave in the snow where your sister 
was buried was as sad as the grave in which the first Pilgrim 
Father in a Massachusetts December put down his first born. 
These intermediate New Englanders did not navigate a ship 
across the Atlantic but they did that which was just as difficult 
when, with small means, they navigated a family amid all the 
straits of severe economies and brought you through into 
4 



50 

circumstances where you could achieve your own fortune. 
{Loud applause.) 

Men of New England, I, an outsider, take all the freedom 
of a neighbor and a personal friend, who has rejoiced in your 
success, of saying that, while you ought not to forget 1620, 
you ought not to forget 1820 and 1840. Surrounded as you 
are with all luxury in your present homes, you will not forget 
the struggles you witnessed in your early homes. Under fres- 
coed ceiling you will not forget the rough-hewn rafters. In 
your libraries of elegantly-bound literature you will sometimes 
think of the sparse supply of books that lay on the stand- 
Cotton Mather's Essay on Doing Good, Baxter's Saints' Rest 
and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress to the Celestial City, which 
rest and which city they long ago entered. 

The dear old Fathers ! How we would like to throw our 
arms around their necks and kiss the wrinkled cheeks and tell 
them how much we thank them for all they did for us and 
how we cherish their memories. May all joy fly our hearts 
and our sight go out in darkness and all sweet sounds become 
to us a discord and our name be accursed if we ever forget to 
honor, revere and love our New England, New York and New 
Jersey ancestors! {Ge?ieral applause.) 

Ninth toast:— "The Old New England Bar." 

Mr. Winslozu : The Committee, in assigning this toast to 
Judge Pratt, did not intend to intimate that he was a cotem- 
porary with or had an acquaintance with the old New England 
bar of the last century {laughter), but the Committee believe 
that he thoroughly understands the subject and appreciates the 
high character and lofty genius of the old New England Bar. 
I have the honor to present Judge Calvin E. Pratt. 

SPEECH OF HON. CALVIN E. PRATT. 

A careful observation and candor at this stage of the ban- 
quet suggest that I ought to state that the subject of this toast 
is not that old New England institution against which the 
thunders of the " Maine Law " have been directed for the last 
few years. Our distinguished guest, General Sherman, has 



51 

spoken in most fitting terms of that great work, which is not 
only the pride of our city but the wonder of the age. His 
admirable speech must have suggested to you, as it has to me, 
that when centuries hence the New Zealander hghts his pipe 
on the remains of one of the towers of the Brooklyn Bridge, 
and he turns in sympathy and curiosity to History for an 
authentic account of the people who were taxed for that won- 
derful structure, his discriminating mind will at last concentrate 
itself upon the reports of the commemorative societies of 
Brooklyn as containing the only reliable information of the 
origin, history and achievement of that race. 

He will find by reference to the records of the St. Nicholas 
Society, that it is claimed by the Dutch that if it had not been 
for Holland there would have been no Pilgrims. In fact, no 
England worth mentioning, as the Dutch assisted in destr'oying 
the Spanish Armada and thus saved England from annihilation. 
That Holland, later on, furnished an asylum for the Pilgrim 
and taught him the amenities of life and inspired him with a 
love of liberty. 

He will see that the Irishman, at St. Patrick's dinner, argues 
to his own satisfaction that of all the material prosperity and 
political science of which we boast is due to Irish immigration. 
He will observe that in the Dutch, Scotch, Irish, French 
and Pilgrim commemorative societies the clergy confidently 
assert that it was the ministers that inspired every heroic event 
in our country's history, and that but for them the world 
would now be groping in moral and intellectual darkness. 

It will also occur to him that the orators at our meetings 
who speak to the toast of " Woman " claim, with great gallan- 
try and some force, that if it had not been for the Pilgrim 
mothers there would have been no Pilgrim fathers. 

I am here to-night, with all the modesty that characterizes 
the members of the legal profession, with possibly undue 
humility but firmly and with that uncompromising veracity 
that always attends after-dinner speaking, to contend for the 
absolute perfection of the old " New England Bar." I am pre- 
pared to deny that any just criticisms can be made against 
their character, methods or qualifications, and boldly to assert 
that all which the people of this country, from Cape Cod to 



52 

Alaska, possess of liberty, prosperity and happiness, is largely 
due to the legal profession of the Old Colony. 

If we are to believe the local press, from which we now take 
our moral culture, our politics, and even a good deal of law, in 
its account of your yearly meeting where all the speeches were 
made before dinner, it is not a safe experiment to allude to 
any of the faults of the Pilgrims. I trust now, after dinner, in 
the peace and quiet that waits on digestion, the assertion may 
be ventured, that love and respect for the legal profession was 
not a cardinal virtue of the early colonists. 

It may not have been a fault. That they should entertain 
some degree of prejudice against lawyers was natural and that 
they did was a melancholy fact. Like the sentiment concern- 
ing witchcraft it was prevalent throughout the world. 

The election of lawyers to a seat in the House of Commons 
had been prohibited about this time. 

The Pilgrims for a long time labored under the mistaken 
notion that they did not need any lawyers. In their primitive 
society they preferred ministers and school-masters to lawyers 
and judges. They were not then educated up to the enlight- 
ened luxury of a lawsuit. 

They had no trouble in settling anything except towns and 
parsons. They executed no bonds but those of matrimony, 
and they cut off the coupons as the country voter votes, 
" early and often." 

They only had two kinds of suits — homespun and " Claim 
and delivery." The former were the product of female indus- 
try, and the latter were prosecuted by the suitors in person, in 
the form of a " habeas corpus^ These suits ended by a body 
execution, and not only the judgment but both parties were 
satisfied. 

Divorces were only granted by the Legislature and the 
contract of marriage was not a limited partnership having 
in view the settlement of new towns. Neither did they have 
great monied institutes or exchanges to seduce the "truly 
good " from paths of rectitude. 

They did not even require the presence of a district attor- 
ney, for although St. Patrick had never stepped foot upon the 
soil, and there was no Atlantic cable, the " Reformer " and the 
" Mugwump " were unknown. 



53 

For the first fifteen or twenty years there were no courts 
in the colony, but the judicial authority was vested in the 
Governor, Deputy Governor, and eighteen assistants chosen 
annually. At first the people assembled with this body and 
styled themselves the " Great and General Court." Afterward 
the people sent delegates to represent them, and this begin- 
ning is the basis upon which rests the principle of a represent- 
ative government. 

It is only by knowing the prejudices and difficulties that 
surrounded the legal profession that its merits can be under- 
stood. The first lawyer who had the temerity to attempt the 
practice of law of whom history gives any account was Mr. 
Thomas Lechford, about 1640. He was soon called up for 
pleading with the jury out of court. He expressed his regret and 
was dismissed, with the warning not to meddle with any more 
controversies. What kind of a living he could make without 
meddling with any more controversies the court did not seem 
to consider. In these early times the laws were few and sim- 
ple and the magistrates exercised an irresponsible power. The 
Clergy and the Justices of the Peace assumed what they termed 
a "healthful authority" for the good of the community, which, 
to use a modern expression, was not at all times patent to the 
vision of the people, "They did not see it," and as a means 
of protection against the discretions or tyranny of the judges, 
lawyers were not only tolerated but welcomed. While it was 
found they were not so expert at alliteration as to turn an elec- 
tion by one sentence they could draft a better statute or frame 
a better constitution than a clergyman. 

We cannot justly estimate the debt of gratitude we owe to 
the lawyers of that day. They resisted the powers of the 
magistrates; they drafted the laws and charters; they formed 
a new mode of tenure of lands, sweeping away the obnoxious 
features of the feudal system. 

That men learned in the law did all this, is proved by the 
fact that in 1641 a law was passed declaring that land should 
be free from all fines on alienation, from all heriots, wardships, 
liveries, primer seizures, year day and waste and escheats and 
forfeitures, as who but a lawyer could know the evil to be 
remedied and use the proper language to accomplish that 
result ? 



o4 

From that day to this lawyers have framed every statute 
and constitution in this country, as a rule ; always excepting 
the Blue Laws of Connecticut. 

It may truthfully be said that, while they are too modest 
to solicit office and too poor to buy it, they are too patriotic 
to refuse it ; and hence out of tw^enty-one Presidents of the 
United States seventeen have been lawyers, and another has 
just been elected. 

We are indebted to the bar for Civil Service, for it was 
copied from the examination which is required for admission 
to practice. But they were not recognized as a profession 
until the Eighteenth Century. The first oath administered to 
a lawyer was in 171 1. After that date no witches were hung. 
Before that date the hanging was done at the instigation of 
Cotton Mather and Judge Stoughton. 

It was at this time that the era of well-instructed judges, 
fearless advocates and learned lawyers commenced. They 
were the result of a long and tedious struggle, and grew out of 
the necessity of a civilized community to protect the rights of 
all its members. 

Paul Dudley, who sat as judge from 1718 to 1751, was the 
first lawyer who was appointed a judge. This example is com- 
mended to you as the proper way to treat judges. Time will 
not permit the mention of the names of the great lawyers who 
lived and wrought during the Eighteenth Century. The names 
of Putnam, Hawley, Worthington, Trowbridge, Ruggles, Lin- 
coln, Adams, and others, will be known as long as the English 
language is spoken. {Applause^ It is true some of them 
became tories and were politically disgraced, but that they were 
loyal to their convictions can never be doubted. 

The old New England lawyers distinguished themselves at 
the bar, upon the bench, upon the fields of battle in the early 
wars, and in the high offices they were called to fill. If we 
turn to a later date, what an innumerable galaxy fills us with 
admiration ! Such names as Story, Mason, Webster, Choate, 
Greenlcaf and Chief Justice Shaw, of each of whom to say one 
word of eulogy to an audience of New Englanders would be 
like attempting to paint the lily or the rose. These men are 
not dead, but live in the light of their fame like the sun and 
stars, shining day and night on the ages. {Applause.) 



55 

To an able and upright judiciary, a learned and fearless bar 
and the majesty of the jurors' oath we owe our national great- 
ness and our individual freedom, through and by which we are 
blessed with peace, prosperity and happiness. For all this we 
owe much of our gratitude to the *' Old New England Bar." 
{Applausei) 

Tenth toast : — " We are Citizens of No Mean City." 

Mr. Winslozv : I will not anticipate the argument, if any be 
required to establish this proposition ; we are certainly not 
mean in one respect ; we have not only supplied our New Eng- 
land Society with officers but we have also generously provided 
the New England Society of New York with its President. It 
is said men are known by the company they keep ; and so per- 
haps a city is known by the Mayor it keeps. If that be so, the 
truth of the toast appears at once that we are citizens of no 
mean city. I have the pleasure of introducing the Mayor of 
Brooklyn, Hon. Seth Low. 

speech of mayor low. 

Mr. Chairinait, Gentlemen of the Nezv England Society : 
Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, I confess myself 
embarrassed by being called upon to respond to a toast with 
which you are so familiar. Had my theme been Plymouth 
Rock, or any other novelty, I should occupy the enviable posi- 
tion of the debater who expressed himself as determined in no 
way to be hampered by the facts. {Laughter.) But I am 
aware that on the subject of Brooklyn you expect from me 
only the sober truth. First of all, it impresses me as a matter 
of some importance from what standpoint the city is consid- 
ered, whether an entire assent can be yielded to the sentiment 
you have proposed, that '' we are citizens of no mean city." I 
think I can imagine a candidate for ofifice comparing the City 
of Brooklyn with the City of New York, and reflecting that in 
New York they not only have four Police Commissioners, but 
at times enjoy a commissioner in duplicate, thinking that in 
our own town, which gets along with a single Police Commis- 
sioner, and gets along with him, as I think, very well, is almost 
too mean a place to reside in. On the other hand, when we 



56 

reflect that our park in reality is the people's pleasure ground, 
we need indulge in no regrets that we have not been arrested 
for being found driving in the park with flowers in our hands. 
As this is probably the last dinner of the year, it may not be 
out of place for me to give an account of my stewardship in 
the matter of after-dinner speeches where they have been deliv- 
ered on the other side of the river. At the dinner of the Ger- 
man Society I had the pleasure of meeting the Mayor of New 
York, who suggested to the assembled company that Brooklyn 
might some day be annexed to the First Ward of that city, 
and I had the honor of pointing out to him by an illustration 
the terms upon which any such compact would be considered 
on our part. I pointed out that it was well known that as a 
matter of privilege, itself sufficient for any expenditure involved, 
we had allowed the inhabitants of New York to join with us in 
constructing the Bridge to the extent of paying one-third of 
the bills, but that no one had ever heard of the New York 
Bridge, while the fame of the Brooklyn Bridge had encircled 
the globe. {Applause.) As I stated on that occasion we claim 
the ownership of the structure two-thirds by right of payment 
and one-third by virtue of our modesty {laughter), and I think 
the verdict there was that there was " nothing mean about me " 
{laughter) as the representative of the city. At the Jewelers' 
dinner, being called upon to respond for our city, 1 took the 
opportunity of pointing out in the terms of that craft the rela- 
tion which the two cities held to each other as I conceived it, 
and suggested to the jewelers that as one looked upon the 
Bridge at night, with its double string of electric lights shining- 
like diamonds in the darkness, it seemed inevitable to me to 
compare the City of New York in its relation to Brooklyn to 
the brilliant pendant which hangs from the neck of some fair 
lady. {Applause^ It is manifest, of course, that the life and 
the beauty are resident in Brooklyn, while our neighbor across 
the river is well enough as an ornament. On this occasion, 
also, I believe it was conceded that as the representative of the 
city " there was nothing mean about me." Later, at St. An- 
drew's dinner, I was obliged to cope with the question from 
another standpoint. It seemed impossible to do honor to that 
occasion without in some way connecting Brooklyn and her 
glory with the achievements of the Scotch, and I threw out the 



5? 

query as a matter of some interest whether it really were a 
Scotchman that appeared, the other morning, at the entrance 
of the Bridge and asked the toll taker what the fare was in the 
cars and, being told five cents, he said : " I'll give you three." 
If that were a Scotchman there seemed to be a great many 
Scotch in the two cities. But seriously, we have here in 
Brooklyn a city in which we may justly delight and a commu- 
nity of which we may justly be proud. The normal condition 
of the human mind appears to be to dwell, as each moment 
passes, on the things that are lacking to complete its satisfac- 
tion and it is well at intervals to take a broader survey of 
things for the purpose of forming a juster estimate of what has 
been accomplished. It is easy, for example, to say that Brook- 
lyn has not a public library nor a free art gallery nor many 
statues ornamenting its public squares ; that its streets, in 
many cases, are poorly paved and that this thing is lacking or 
that ; but if we wish to apprehend correctly the quality of the 
city and the genius of the people who live here we must turn 
our thoughts rather to the things that we have than to those 
we have not. In this connection I would remind you that it is 
just fifty years this year since Brooklyn became a city, and in 
this short period the people of Brooklyn have erected a city 
large enough to accommodate comfortably nearly 700,000 peo- 
ple. They have provided it with the best water to be had in 
any city of the country — water so good, as I hear recently from 
Kentucky, that it is the only brand known there which does 
not spoil the whiskey in the mixing. They have built a park 
of generous dimensions, and have connected it with the sea by 
a driveway destined to become one of the famous avenues of 
the world. They have laid out and paved more miles of streets 
than are paved in the great metropolitan city across the river, 
possibly without including the annexed district above the Har- 
lem. These streets are in the main well sewered and too well 
gaspiped. Our public buildings are by no means discreditable, 
although constructed on a scale too small for the great growth 
that we have enjoyed. And, last of all, we have borne the 
greatest part of the burden in connection with the Bridge which 
joins us with New York — a bridge upon which I never look 
without being reminded of the saying attributed to Oscar 
Wilde : That of all the specimens of architecture or construe- 



58 

tion which he saw in the United States, none appeared to him 
as beautiful — excepting the bridges from which he drew the 
inference; pre-eminently true, as I think, of our bridge — that 
the lines of the greatest strength were the lines of the greatest 
beauty. {App/a2isc.) This survey will have suggested to you 
what is familiar enough to you all — that the growth of the city 
is a marvelous growth for so short a period, and it remains true 
of the people of Brooklyn that they have accomplished it all. 
Two incidents in our career strike me as somewhat typical of 
our Brooklyn character : The City Hall, as originally laid out, 
was to cover the whole triangle now included in the City Hall 
grounds. Upon this scale it was begun, but a fear that it was 
too large induced the people of that day to change it to its 
present size. As I believe the existing City Hall was. built out 
of the material which formed the first story of the earlier struc- 
ture. How much better it would have been if the original 
design had been adhered to. Again, when the park was to be 
built, the courage to design was present, but faith in the future 
of the city seemed to have halted midway. Those instances 
make me believe that what Brooklyn needs, is for all her citi- 
zens to think of her in the spirit of the sentiment you have 
committed to me this evening: "We are citizens of no mean 
city." Thinking in that spirit, we should have courage to go 
to the end upon that belief. Instances might be multiplied 
almost without limit, where foresighted plans, based on confi- 
dence in the city, have been brought to naught by the timidity 
or shortsightedness of those who took counsel of their fears. 
We all of us need to have more faith in Brooklyn. I sometimes 
feel that Brooklyn men themselves are responsible for the low 
range of values in the city as compared with the value of real 
estate in New York, those who have the lending of money in 
Brooklyn taking such conservative view of the prospects of 
property here. It seems to me that what we want to learn 
from our history as a city is to believe that Brooklyn is a great 
city with a great future, and is to be justly dealt with in the 
present only by citizens who will in all respects devise and 
carry into execution liberal things. {Applause.) We want a 
public library and many other attractions incident to the life 
of a large community. {Applause.) Brooklyn is justly entitled, 
as I think, to look to her men of wealth for the accomplishment 



59 

of some of these things as well as to the tax levy. I can only- 
touch upon one other characteristic of the place, one to my 
mind full of hope for the future, and that is the spirit of inde- 
pendence which has marked her people in the political contests 
of recent times. {Applause^ Whatever may be the temporary 
consequences of such action, no man can doubt that in the 
broad sense it bodes well for the town. Brooklyn, as I recall, 
is the only large city where the spirit of independence was strong 
enough in the minds of the people to separate broadly between 
local and national issues. The City of Philadelphia holding its 
election in the Spring found everything locally overslaughed 
by the exigencies of the approaching Presidential election. 
The City of Boston holding its municipal election immediately 
after the contest found the rancors of election day in Novem- 
ber working themselves out at the polls in December. No 
doubt it is largely owing to the fact the critical moment came 
in Brooklyn a full year in advance of the Presidential election 
that we ourselves escaped the decision of local questions upon 
national issues. But the fact remains of substantial importance 
to our history as a city. Meanwhile we can learn, I think, from 
the experience of Philadelphia and of Boston — not to speak of 
the recent experience of New York — that everything which 
legislation can do to make possible a broad division between 
local and national questions ought to be done. The best sug- 
gestions which I have heard upon this point is to make the 
term of our Governor four years in length, as it is in the State 
of Pennsylvania, and provide for the election of the Governor 
and President in the alternate even years, and for local elec- 
tions in the odd years. By this method there will never be an 
important local election coincident with an important State or 
national contest, while the manifest objections to separate 
charter elections, held at other times than in November, will 
be completely overcome. 

Gentlemen, I thank you for your courtesy, and assure you 
that Brooklyn looks to you and to all her people to see that 
her reputation becomes more brilliant every year. [Loud 
applause.) 

Mr. Whtslozv : — We were hoping to hear from the represen- 
tatives of our Sister Societies in Brooklyn, and from the Presi- 



60 

dent of The New England Society in the City of New York. 
But this is Saturday night, and near midnight. After what Dr. 
Talmage has told us of the earnest piety of the Pilgrim Fathers 
it might not be well with us to impinge upon Sunday morning ; 
if we do we may be shadowed by the Fathers aforesaid or their 
representative ghosts. We feel obliged therefore to ask our 
friends whom we cannot now hear to send in the good speeches 
they would make and we promise to print. 

As requested, Mr. Hunter and Mr. Sullivan have kindly 
furnished their addresses. 

SPEECH OF HON. JOHN W. HUNTER. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Nezv England Society : 
On behalf of the St. Nicholas Society of Nassau Island I return 
my cordial acknowledgments for the honor which you have 
paid us this evening. 

After the flow of eloquence which has fallen from the lips 
of the speakers to the toasts of this festival, it is with great 
diffidence that I shall attempt to express the few words I have 
to offer. What can be said on an occasion like this but words 
of congratulation and thankfulness — not, perhaps, that the Pil- 
grims did not stay on Plymouth Rock, but that we have room 
and space enough for all who come. 

The Hollanders came here first, and they came to stay. 
The rich farming lands of Long Island and the valleys of the 
Hudson and of the Mohawk had supreme attractions for them, 
and their descendants are to be found in the same localities to 
the present day. They are not given to much speaking; 
indeed their most famous man in history was surnamed " The 
Silent." They do not even tell of their own virtues, being 
perfectly content to practice them. They lived quiet and con- 
tented lives, happy in their possessions, until interfered with 
and disturbed by these roving Pilgrims. 

Orators have asked, " Shall we ever hear the last of the 
Mayflower and of Plymouth Rock?" These Pilgrims seem 
never to have rested in their pilgrimage. They are ever on the 
move, invading all places and peoples. They are as universal 
as the Irishman, and he is everywhere. They seem to have 
great fondness for Plymouth Rock, but few of them stay near 



61 

it. But the Mayflower is the ever-blooming theme — the bed 
of sweet-scented roses, giving fragrance to every movement. 
Her cabins were small, yet she is said to have brought over 
more tables, chairs and spinning wheels, etc., than would freight 
a half dozen of the largest ships of the present day, and the 
search for these articles of ancient memory is still active and 
persistent, and often quite successful! 

The living freight of this little shallop has made its mark 
upon the world at large ; not they alone — the mixture of races 
was needed to make a great, new and blended people to form 
the character of the nation that was to be and happily now is ; 
a nation not born in a day, but sturdy and strong in its early 
manhood, free and independent. May they prove worthy of 
their privileges and prosperity ! 

SPEECH OF WM. SULLIVAN. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Neiv England Society : 
I thank you, in the name of the St. Patrick Society, for your 
courteous invitation, and for your cordial welcome and genial 
hospitality. And in behalf of its members I sincerely congrat- 
ulate you on the prosperous condition of your Society, and 
assure you that they all desire, as earnestly as you do, that the 
good feeling which exists between the two Societies will always 
continue. 

After listening to so many eloquent speeches about the 
indestructibility of Plymouth Rock, the absolute perfection of 
the Temple of Liberty of which it is the corner stone, and the 
divine wisdom and superhuman virtues of the Pilgrim Fathers 
whose memories are perpetuated by such an enduring monu- 
ment, I feel that you, their virtuous descendants, ought to be 
perfectly satisfied with yourselves. As modesty is the predom- 
inant characteristic of an Irishman whenever he finds himself 
in the company of Yankees, I shall not now undertake to prove 
that the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers could never have 
developed into twenty millions of shrewd Yankees without the 
assistance of the Irish, and that consequently the modern Yan- 
kee is simply an Irishman evolved. And besides, I labor under 
the disadvantage of being to-night three thousand miles farther 
from Blarney Castle than from Plymouth Rock, and it would 
take me until St. Patrick's day to travel that distance. 



62 

I find that the Yankee is always on the best of terms with 
himself as well as with everybody else. I suppose that is 
because he possesses a good conscience. Well, a good con- 
science is something worth having at this late hour, for a sound, 
refreshing sleep is the best preparation possible for an observ- 
ance of the Sabbath after the manner of your pious ancestors. 

Before concluding, I invoke the benediction of St. Patrick 
on this Society, on all the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers, 
on all the natives of New England, and on all the stray Yan- 
kees who have the misfortune of not being born in New 
England. 

Gentlemen, I shall not detain you any longer. I bid you 
good night, and wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy 
New Year ! 



WITCHES IN SALEM AND ELSEWHERE. 
By Rev. John W. Chadwick. 

"I am a man," the Roman Terence said, "and I am indifferent 
to nothing human." We are New Englanders ;ind to nothing that 
pertains to the history of New England can we be indifferent. 
Certainly we cannot be to that series of events of which " Salem 
Witchcraft " was the crowning misery and shame. There is no 
other passage in the history of our early home that is so pathetic as 
this, so pitiful, so tragical. Perhaps for an occasion like the present, 
meant to be bright and joyous, if I had chosen my own subject it 
would have been of a more genial character. But I will not doubt 
the wisdom of your Committee who say to one man " Go " and he 
goeth, and to another "Come" and he cometh, and to a third, " Do 
this " and he doeth it. But if I bring a death's head to the feast it is 
exactly in the spirit of those old Egyptians who are credited with 
doing so, not to impede the gaiety but to make it more abound. 
For certainly the first and last impression we derive from studying 
the subject of " Witches in Salem and Elsewhere " is that it is better 
to be living here and now, than in the good old times for which so 
many sigh. A " preparatory lecture " for Thanksgiving could not 
have a better theme than this. 

My purpose is the simplest possible. It is, in the first place, to 
refresh your recollection of the circumstances of Salem Witchcraft, 
and then to see how this delusion was related to the general intelli- 
gence and spirit of the time; if haply we may judge what special 
ignominy should attach to the community that contained within 
itself the possibility of events so horrible to the imagination, so 
chilling to the heart. 

Fortunately 'for those who wish to make themselves acquainted Avith 
the facts, they are set forth in Upham's " Salem Witchcraft with an 
account of Salem Village," with the greatest fullness. My first 
acquaintance with these noble volumes was in 1S67 when they first 
appeared. I read them 

" In a tumultuous privacy of storm," 
beginning early in the day and reading all day long and far into the 
night till, with a throbbing brain and bursting heart, I reached the 



64 

final page, half fancying that the roaring wind and driving rain 
outside were the racket of some witches' company or the intolerable 
plaint of those — a countless multitude — for whom a belief in witch- 
craft, and its attending ills, had made this pleasant earth a veritable 
hell. Mr. Upham's account of Salem village, which consumes more 
than three hundred pages of his book, is of the first importance to a 
perfect understanding of the principal matter in hand. In the first 
place it relieves the Salem of our time of much though not of all the 
odium of the delusion. For the Salem of our time is not a lineal 
descendent of the Salem Village of 1692, as even Longfellow 
apparently conceived in his " New England Tragedies." 

" 'Twas but a village then ; the good man ploughed 
His ample acres under sun and cloud ; 
The good wife at her door-step sat and spun. 
And gossipped with her neighbors in the sun." 

The Salem village of 1692 is Danvers now, with Putnamville and 
Tapleyville and Danvers Plains. Salem is several miles away, and 
to the great delusion it contributed none of the original elements, 
three only of the twenty put to death, and none of " the afflicted chil- 
dren." But this correction is a little matter in comparison with the 
light which Mr. Upham's history of Salem Village throws upon the 
sources of the delusion, and the streams that fed its turbid flow. If 
it is true, as Herbert Spencer thinks, that every cause has more than 
one effect, do Ave Hibernicize when we declare that every effect has 
more than one cause.'' Certainly the causes of all considerable 
social movements are much less simple than the careless are inclined 
to think, and they are rooted in a much deeper past. For the 
beginning of the French Revolution Louis Blanc went back to the 
Council of Trent in 1545, and that was not too far. Salem Witch- 
craft was a foul tarn that drew its slimy waters in from many a fetid 
swamp and many a dark ravine ; from an immemorial and world-wide 
superstition first of all ; then from the special doctrines of religion 
current at the time ; then from the local situation, its meagre 
settlements, its lonely roads, its gloomy forests, its terrors of the 
savage foe, its great outlying region of the unexplored* impinging on 
the narrow tract which fifty years of painful labor had subdued to 
scanty cultivation ; then from the animosities that sprung up, as 
naturally as fire-weed from burned-over land, from the conflicting 
claims of rural settlements; then from the parish bickerings of 
twenty years; and finally, when all of these conspiring circumstances 
with oppressive taxes and general political uneasiness had done 
their worst, the afflicted children brought their increment of folly 



65 

and pretense, and the Rev. Samuel Parris his inquisitorial temper 
and Justice Hathorne his infuriate zeal. The wonder is that only- 
twenty suffered shameful death ; that only a few hundred were 
imprisoned, and that the terror raged for so short a time. If 
hundreds had been put to death and thousands had been put in 
prison, it would not begin to be so strange. 

In 1692, but little more than half a century had passed since the 
first grant, in this vicinity, had been made to Gov. Endicott, his 
many-acred Orchard Farm. But other grants soon followed, and 
before the day of wrath there had been rescued from the wilderness 
a score of goodly farms, that nourished a community of exceptionally 
earnest, thrifty, self-respecting men and women. There were giants in 
those days. John Putnam and his stalwart sons, Thomas, Nathaniel, 
and John, broke up their original farms into still ample ones for 
their children, and others did the same, and comfort and prosperity- 
increased. There was a patriarchal aspect to the time. The Put- 
nams, the Nourses, the Porters, the Hutchinsons, and their friends 
and neighbors had their women-servants in the house, their men- 
servants and slaves in wood and field. It had its picture-side ; the 
women capped and kerchiefed tidily; the men broad-collared and 
high-booted, with sword or rapier upon hip or thigh ; their hats, like 
all their ways in public and in private, steeple-crowned. The 
situation was i)oetic and idyllic, but it did not exempt those excel- 
lent, God-fearing villagers from any of the frailties and misfortunes 
which pertain to man as man. Indeed there were conspicuous 
elements that had in them an immense potentiality of ill. In 1658 
the General Court had created the town of Topsfield, including in 
its limits lands that had been a part of Salem village. The new 
town, thus created, went so far as to dispute the private ownership 
of lands and buildings to which the title had been given by the town 
of Salem. What came of this outrageous business a single instance 
will suffice to show. John Putnam, second of his line, found Tops- 
field men upon his land engaged in cutting down a tree. Thinking 
much, but saying little, he went home, but in a few days returned 
with sons and nephews in full force, and bade them chop away. 
The men of Topsfield heard the falling trees and came and asked 
him what he was about. "Felling his trees," he said," and would 
goon until next March." "What! by violence?" " Ay, by vio- 
lence, and they could sue him if they liked." Here was a sample 
quarrel. There were many such originating from the same prolific 
soil. They fell into the ground and died, but afterward they bore 
much fruit. The fierce heat of the witchcraft madness warmed them 
5 



66 

into life, and they sprang up exuding poisonous suspicions, and 
casting baleful shadows upon blameless lives. 

Another element that portended nothing good to Salem village 
was its ecclesiastical experience. The villagers were so far from 
Salem that they desired a separate church organization. This the 
mother-church in Salem-town refused, hating to lose their tithes, 
but it allowed them to build a meeting-house and employ a minister. 
The meeting-house was only " thirty-four feet long, twenty-eight 
feet broad, and sixteen feet between the joists," but it was big with 
possibilities of future ill. The first minister was settled without 
unanimity, and retained from year to year in spite of steadily 
increasing alienation. Nathaniel Putnam and others thought " he 
could not prove his call." There was charge and counter-charge. 
There was accusation and defense. He neglected family prayers 
according to tlie opposition. But his friends declared that he did not 
and that on week-days he often repeated his sermons of the previous 
Sabbath to his family! And still the hardness of the opposition did 
not melt. The mother-church endorsed him and the General Court, 
but it was all in vain. The village patty-pan was in a state of 
liveliest ebullition. The air was full of mutual recrimination. Mr. 
Bailey was remarkable for his adhesive quality, but at length he 
concluded to retire. It was too late, for the root of bitterness had 
struck a fibre into every house and home. So nourished, it went on 
from year to year breeding a noxious life that was a factor of no 
slight importance in the times that tried men's souls. 

In an evil hour, George Burroughs, who had been preaching in 
the Maine district, consented to be the successor of Mr. Bayley. 
Inevitably it was foreordained that Mr. Bayley's friends should be 
his enemies. The parish bickering went on. Thomas Putnam, Jr., 
and Bayley had married sisters. Hence the lost cause of Bayley 
centred in Putnam's house, a fact that meant the death of Mr. 
Burroughs for the crime of witchcraft in due season. His troubles 
had begun before he came to Salem village. Once there, " unmerci- 
ful disaster followed fast and followed faster," till, his wife dying, he 
could not meet her funeral charges, his salary having been withheld. 
Arrested for the debt, the case was finally withdrawn, and he made 
haste to get away from Salem village to the savages of Casco Bay, 
there to await the crowning misery of his life. 

This was in 1683. The next minister was Deodat Lawson. The 
mother-church advised the villagers to desist from ordaining him 
" till their spirits were better quieted and composed." Despairing 
of this consummation Mr. Lawson took himself off in 1687. For 



67 

three years he had been scholarly and eloquent in vain. He too 
contributed his quota to the impending crisis. His wife and child 
had died during his ministry — events that were economized by the 
afflicted children — and he came back to strengthen his successor's 
hands against the witches in the day of their distress. 

His successor, Samuel Parris, has, and deservedly, a fame less 
enviable than that of any other person active in the witchcraft trials. 
Called in November, 1688, his anxiety to make the terms of his settle- 
ment as lucrative as possible delayed his ordination for a year, and 
indeed we are met here this evening (Nov. 19) on the anniversary of 
that great event. The MS. of his sermon, which is still extant, is thus 
endorsed in his own hand : " My poor and weak ordination sermon 
at the embodying of a church in Salem village on the 19th of Novem- 
ber, 1689, the Rev. Mr. Nicholas Noyes embodying of us; who also 
ordained my most unworthy self pastor, and together with the Rev. 
Samuel Phillips and the Rev. Mr. John Hale imposed hands, the 
same Mr. Phillips giving me the right hand of fellowship with 
beautiful loveliness and humility." So much conventional meekness 
exactly suits the harsh, imperious, unbending temper of the man and 
his inquisitorial spirit. His text was, as Carlyle would say, significant 
of much : " This day have I rolled the reproach of Egypt from off 
you." It was a prophecy reversed. He was ordained to roll upoti 
his people a reproach from which they never will be wholly free. 
From the date of his ordination till the outbreak of the witchcraft 
delusion his parochial action was unconsciously adapted, in a 
remarkable degree, to prepare the way for that calamity, so that it 
might have free course and gather up into its train innumerable 
circumstances tending to increase its volume and momentum. Mr. 
Parris was always insisting upon his prerogative ; always magnifying 
his office ; always endeavoring to arm his church with petty thunder- 
bolts against the parish. His success was only moderate for two 
years, and then came the catastrophe that enabled him to make 
himself felt in no indifferent fashion, and to "deal damnation round 
the land " with an unsparing hand. And it was under his own roof 
that the catastrophe developed an initiative so intense and violent 
that what followed was as inevitable as darkness when the sun has 
been withdrawn. 

Mr. Parris had in his family, among other slaves, two from the 
Spanish Indies known as John Indian and Tituba his wife. It is 
probable that the first step, which often costs so little and yet counts 
so much, was taken by these miserable creatures, steeped in the 
superstitions of their race. Certain it is that they were active in the 



circle that was formed in the winter of 169 1-2, and met frequently 
at Mr. Parris's to practice magical and necromantic arts. They 
were the teachers of the rest. Further instruction there may have 
been, derived from printed books. Such were at hand : Perkins' 
" Damned Art of Witchcraft ; " Cotton Mather's " Memorable Provi- 
dences relating to Witchcraft," hot from the press, and Sir Matthew 
Hale's "Trial of Witches." Of the ten "afflicted children " only 
two could write their names, but if only one of them could read the 
rest could listen. Then, too, the air was heavy with the supersti- 
tion. The accusers proved to be, as time went on, well versed in 
all its leading propositions; its hackneyed phrases were continually 
dropping from their lips. " The afflicted children," as they were called 
throughout the trials, were really children in but three instances. 
Mr. Parris's daughter was nine years old; her cousin Abigail 
Williams was eleven ; Ann Putnam, daughter of Thomas Putnam, 
Jr., was twelve. But Mary Walcott was seventeen, as, too, were 
Mercy Lewis and Elizabeth Hubbard. Elizabeth Booth and 
Susanna Sheldon were each nineteen, and Mary Warren and Sarah 
Churchill each twenty years of age. Mrs. Putnam, the mother of 
Ann, was also more or less afflicted, and a Mrs. Pope. Doubtless 
the first intention was merely to have a good time, to make the 
cardless, playless, danceless days a little less monotonous. But 
soon the children, as I will still call them for convenience, got 
in beyond their depth. Their imaginations became morbidly 
excited ; their nerves became disordered ; an epidemic of hysteria 
set in, its fancies colored, as usual, by the dominant impressions of 
the time. They did the strangest things, got into the strangest 
positions. They uttered incoherent sounds. They dropt insensible 
and writhed upon the floor, crying as if in dreadful pain. But 
apparently they had no thought of accusing anybody till the village 
doctor came and solemnly pronounced them bewitched. This 
formula was as convenient then as " Malaria " is now to express the 
doctor's ignorance of the case in hand. For the time being parish 
quarrels, politics, and the Indians were all forgotten. The afflicted 
children were on exhibition free of charge, and from Salem and the 
whole country-side hundreds came flocking in to see their antics and 
then testify that the half had not been told. March 20th, Mrs. Pope 
broke into Mr. Lawson's sermon with, " Now, there's enough of 
that," and in the afternoon Ann Putnam with, " There's a yellow- 
bird sitting on the minister's hat." Which things, says Mr. Lawson, 
" did something interrupt me, being so unusual." There was a day 
of prayer appointed at Mr. Parris's house. The children performed 



69 

as usual, and the ministers were much impressed. It was agreed 
that the Devil had determined on an unexampled exhibition of his 
baleful power, and must be met upon his chosen ground with an 
unquailing front. Then importunity began. " Who is it afflicts 
you ? " " Who is it that bewitches you ? " The importunate would 
have an answer, and at last it came : " Tituba ! " " Goody 
Osburn ! " "Goody Good!" Warrants for the arrest of these 
persons were issued at once, and on the following day (March TSt) 
magistrates Hathorne and Corwin came from Salem to examine 
them. Sarah Good was exactly the sort of person that the witch- 
craft delusion always victimized in the earlier stages of its outbreaks 
everywhere, " a forlorn, friendless, forsaken creature, broken down 
by wretchedness of condition and ill-reputes. And the examination 
was of a piece with everything that followed: "Sarah Good what 
evil spirit have you familiarity with ? " " None." " Have you made 
no contracts with the Devil?" "No." "Why do you hurt these 
children.? " " I do not hurt them, I scorn it." " What creature do 
you employ then.''" "No creature; but I am falsely accused." 
"Why do you not tell us the truth.? Why do you thus torment 
these poor children ? " " I do not torment them." " Who do you em- 
ploy then ? " I employ nobody, I scorn it." " How came they thus 
tormented?" "How do I know." The method of each subse- 
quent examination was the same. Apparently the business suited 
Hathorne well. He did the most of it, leaving little for his associate. 
His belief in witchcraft was complete ; he held the accused guilty 
from the outset, and his questions were shrewdly calculated to 
entrap them or worry them into a confession. The afflicted children 
were the principal witnesses, and their sufferings, which were doubt- 
less real enough, in the presence of the accused, were convincing 
evidence of the complicity of the latter in the hellish arts with which 
they had been charged. Not only the sincerity and truthfulness, 
but also the infallibility of the afflicted children was from Hathorne's 
point of view beyond dispute. And it is certain that the majority of 
the community were of his opinion. It was only here and there that 
any one had the boldness to suggest that the children were dis- 
sembling, or that their sufferings and contortions might have some 
other than the imagined cause. Such boldness was so dangerous, 
so apt to mark the person manifesting it as another witch, that it 
cultivated secrecy ; it remained a whispered word and oftener a 
thought. But even as a thought it was extremely rare. The 
delusion was very nearly coextensive, in its earlier stages, with the 
entire community. Than Nathaniel Putnam and Nathaniel Inger- 



70 

soil there were no sounder-headed, better hearted men In Salem 
village, and they were equally deluded with the rest. 

Sarah Osburn, apprehended with Sarah Good and Tituba, was 
also a predestined victim, her second marriage having made her 
subject to the curse of evil tongues. She protested her innocence as 
unfalteringly as Goody Good, but Tituba confessed the crime with 
which she had been charged, implicated Good and Osburn and two 
other persons, then fell into a grievous fit, supposed to be the 
rending of the Devil as he went out of her. 

The examinations continued for several days, the accused being 
carried back and forth between the meeting-house and Ipswich jail, 
the miserable procession striking terror into every lonely house along 
the tiresome way. After the examination the accused were sent to 
jail in Boston, where Goody Osburn died from hardship and abuse, 
before she could be brought to trial. Tituba was sold to pay her fees, 
after a year and a month of prison-life. But Goody Good was brought 
to trial in June, and executed with several others on the 19th of July. 

The examinations were in the meeting-house in Salem Village, 
which must, on these occasions, have presented a unique and terrify- 
ing scene. The accused were generally the calmest persons in the 
motley crowd which filled the church as never had the usual dis- 
pensation. They met the charges brought against them with various 
demeanor, according to their individual characters and the habit of 
their lives: some with complete bewilderment, some with pathetic 
wonder that such things could be, some with the pride of outraged 
innocence ; and one, Giles Corey, with invincible silence. Friends, 
husbands, wives, and children, stood around, amazed, confounded, 
hardly questioning the truth of accusations that cut them to the 
heart. Then there were the afflicted children wath their monstrous 
fancies, their grotesque narrations, their piercing cries, their sudden 
accusations — so that no one was certain that his name would not be 
next — their horrible convulsions. x\t critical moments there were fits 
and faintings in the crowd, and these were turned immediately to 
account by the afflicted ; credited to those accused already, or to 
some new victim of their imagination or distrust. The Rev. Samuel 
Parris was always a conspicuous figure on the scene. The magis- 
trates were obliged to him for many valuable hints. Occasionally 
they found that he had taken their business entirely upon himself, 
and was pushing it \vith exemplary zeal. 

In a paper of this sort it is impossible for me to give a detailed 
account of Salem witchcraft. A horrible monotony attaches to the 
particulars of the various examinations, depositions and trials that 



71 

have come down to us. The delusion grew apace. Deodat Lawson 
came back to Salem village and preached a tremendous sermon on 
the Devil's work that was ravaging his former charge. It made the 
seven times heated furnace hotter than before. Mr. Parris's ser- 
mons might all have been upon the text " Thou shalt not suffer a 
witch to live," for this was the outcome of them all. The Rev. Mr. 
Noyes, of the First Church in Salem, was not a whit behind. The 
afflicted children were brought to church on Sundays, and added 
many a vivid illustration to the preacher's text. At other times they 
were allowed the freedom of the village. Their foolish pride was 
nursed by the bad eminence to which they had attained. They were 
extremely sensitive to any faintest doubt of their sincerity. They 
entertained a world of gossip, and were always open to suggestions 
prompted by the foolishness of some and the malignity of others. 
Mr. Parris's friends were their friends; his enemies were theirs. 
With such conditions it was no wonder that the delusion gathered to 
itself new victims every day, accusing and accused. Like a mon- 
strous magnet it attracted and held fast a hundred diverse elements : 
family quarrels that were dead and buried came to life again at its 
touch ; the parish quarrels, from the beginning, were of the first 
importance. Ann Putnam was a niece of Bayley's wife. George 
Burroughs had succeeded Bayley in the pastorate. For no better 
reason did the civil arm reach out and pluck him from his work in 
Casco Bay, and drag him to the mockery of a trial and to a horrid 
death. Every obscure ailment was a suggestion of withcraft, every 
threat of angry men in quarrels that had long been hushed, every 
suspicion, even the most tacit, that the afflicted children might con- 
trol themselves a little better if they would. So adding to itself in 
many ways, soiling itself with elements most foul, staining itself with 
innocent blood, the torrent rolled along. Salem and Andover and 
Beverly and Ipswich succumbed to its tumultuous flood. It was 
reported that in Andover alone there were " forty people who could 
raise the devil." Strangely enough in Marblehead there was but 
one who had the gift, a fact which has not been forgotten by " the 
women of Marblehead " nor by the men, and it has suggested to 
them many odorous comparisons, malodorous to the Salem nose. 
The witch's name was Wilmott Redd, and the details of her examin- 
ation and her trial, some of them hardly to be named to ears polite, 
mark the extreme of nothingness in the way of evidence produced. 
Nevertheless, it was sufficient for her death. She was one of the 
" eight fire-brands of hell," that were so sad a spectacle to Mr. 
Noyes at the final hanging, Sept. 22nd, 1692. 



The trials were in the Salem Court House. A special court of 
Oyer and Terminer was ordered for the occasion. Deputy Gov, 
Stoughton was the chief justice, and of the six associate justices 
four were Boston men. Here is one ample reason, if there were no 
other, why the shame of Salem witchcraft cannot be fixed exclu- 
sively on Salem village or on Salem town. The Boston judges had 
not been immersed in the delusion which had been raging for three 
months when they arrived upon the ground. But clay is not more 
plastic to the potter's hand than were these excellent and learned 
men to the prevailing passion of the time. Bridget Bishop was the 
only person tried at the first session of the court. She was con- 
demned, and was executed on the loth of June. The next sitting 
of the court was on the 29th of June. It tried and sentenced five 
women, of whom Rebecca Nourse was the most conspicuous for her 
nobility of mind and heart. What drew the thunderbolt in her case 
was her prosperous condition, the probing of some old quarrel about 
land, and a rumor of her distrust of the afflicted children. The 
evidence was utterly absurd. The jury found it inconclusive, and 
brought in a verdict of " Not Guilty," whereupon the afflicted chil- 
dren set up a fearful cry, and the judges ordered the jury to go back 
and bring in a different verdict — and the thing was done ! Nothing 
was left undone that could be done to increase this noble woman's 
misery and shame. She had been torn from all the comforts and 
endearments of her home in her old age ; she had been loaded with 
fetters in a noisome jail ; her naked body had been searched for 
witch-marks by men's eyes and hands; last, but not least to her, she 
was dragged from jail into " the great and spacious meeting-house," 
and excommunicated from the church. It was a little matter, after 
that, that on the 19th of July she was hung with four others, and 
her body thrust with theirs into a crevice of the rocks. 

The next meeting of the court was on the 5th of August. 
Things had been going on from bad to worse. Men saved them- 
selves from accusation by accusing others. To deliberate was to be 
lost. The Andover magistrate having arrested forty persons 
declined to arrest more. Immediately he was cried out upon. His 
brother was accused of having " afflicted " a dog. He fled for 
safety. " The dog it was that died." At the session of the 5th of 
August, George Burroughs, the former minister of Salem village, was 
tried with five others and condemned; and of the six, five were exe- 
cuted on the 19th of the same month. If I had time to do so, I could 
show you in how many instances these horrible events were touched 
with beauty and sublimity by the patience and the heroism of the 



accused. On the 9th and 17th of September there were fifteen more 
convictions, and of the fifteen, eight were executed on the 22nd of the 
month, and after them no more. 

A variety of circumstances contributed to this result: the 
excellent character of the accused, the growing fondness of the 
afflicted for a shining mark, the courage of certain men of Andover, 
who commenced actions for slander against some of the accusers, 
the startling theory that the Devil had been simulating the appear- 
ance of innocent persons to bring them to destruction. Last, but 
not least, the manner of Giles Corey's death had sent a shudder of 
revulsion through the entire community, except that part of it which 
had staked everything upon the continuation of the terror. Shame that 
his evidence had contributed to the conviction of his wife, and deter- 
mination that his property should be saved from confiscation, marked 
out his course. " Guilty or Not Guilty V He refused to plead, and 
no threat could alter his determination. That meant peine forte et 
dure — the torture. He knew it well, and still he would not speak. 
But the whole story is succinctly told in a ballad which has certainly 
the manner of the olden time. The author's real sympathies were, I 
imagine, with the murdered man : 

" Giles Corey was a Wizzard strong, 

A stubborn wretch was he, 
And fitt was he to hang on high 

Upon the Locust Tree. 

" So when before the Magistrates 

For Triall he did come, 
He would no true Confession make 

But was compleatlie dumbe. 

" ' Giles Corey,' said the Magistrate, 
' What hast thou heare to pleade 

To these that now accuse thy Soule 
Of Crimes and Horrid Deed ?' 

" Giles Corey — he said not a Worde, 

No single Worde spake he ; 
' Giles Corey,' sayth the Magistrate, 

' We'll press it out of thee.' 

" They got them then a heavy Beam, 

They laid it on his Breast ; 
They loaded it with heavie Stones, 

And hard upon him prest. 

" ' More Weight ' now, said this wretched Man, 

' More Weight,' again he cryed. 
And he did no Confession make 

But wickedly he dyed." 



74 

The heavy stones upon Giles Corey's breast pressed with an equal 
weight upon the madness of the time. If they did not crush the life 
entirely out it, they maimed it so that it was unable to destroy the 
victims it had condemned already. The belief in witchcraft was as 
strong as ever. Distrust of the afflicted children there were almost none. 
But it began to be conceived that the devil was playing a deeper 
game than they imagined. He had deceived the children. He had 
assumed the appearance and the voice and manner of the accused. 
The governor of the province annulled the functions of the court. 
A new court was established, and met in Salem in January, 1693. It 
indicted fifty persons for witchcraft. Twenty of these were brought 
to trial, and three were convicted, but they were not put to death. 
There were further trials, which all resulted in acquittals ; and, in 
May, Sir Wm. Phips discharged all the imprisoned, one hundred and 
fifty persons. From first to last twice as many must have been com- 
mitted, for not a few had died in prison, and many had escaped ; 
Capt. John Alden among them, a son of the orignal John, and " the 
Puritan maiden, Priscilla," who, safe back in Duxbury, reported him- 
self as having coming direct from hell. It is impossible to estimate 
the amount of suffering which the delusion caused. That of the 
nineteen who were hung, and the one who had been crushed to 
death, was but the smallest part of it. The accused had been hud- 
dled into noisome jails. They had been loaded down with heavy 
chains. They had been subjected to the most horrible indignities. 
Their children had been coached to testify against their characters 
and lives— and the friends of the accused had hardly suffered less. 
Better Giles Corey's agony than that of Goodman Nurse and Good- 
man How, vainly contending for lives more precious to them than 
their own. And " the afflicted children," — what of them and those 
who were their principal abettors ? " Some of them," we are told, 
" proved profligates, abandoned to all vice, others passed their days in 
obscurity and contempt." But Mather, Noyes and Parris continued 
in the exercise of their ministerial functions with little shame, if any, 
for the part that they had taken in the business. 

If now we seek the rationale of this matter — its relation to the 
life and thought and feeling, of the place and time, and to the life 
and thought and feeling of the civilized world of 1692 — we shall at 
once discover that Salem witchcraft was no isolated phenomenon, that 
it signified no ignorance or credulity special to Salem village and the 
adjoining towns, no special cruelty on the part of their inhabitants; 
that it was of a piece with doctrines everywhere maintained, with 
practices which everywhere prevailed. The contrary opinion, that is 



75 

even now so generally held, can be accounted for in various ways. 
By the average ignorance concerning the development of human 
thought ; by the sectarian willingness to fasten a disgraceful imputa- 
tion on the New England Puritans, by the persistent bantering of 
neighboring towns and of distant sections of the country, taking its 
rise therefrom and cherished as a weapon in the rivalries of politics 
and trade. It is not to be denied that Salem witchcraft had, to 
some extent, an appearance of its own, but this, as we shall see, was 
not indicative of an inferior intellectual but of a higher moral stand- 
ing than that of hundreds of communities that had been afflicted 
with this malady before it blighted Salem village with its curse. 

A belief in witchcraft, after some fashion, has been one of the 
most universal beliefs exhibited by the human mind. We come upon 
it in the rudest forms of savage life, and we can follow its develop- 
ment along the line of civilization u]) to the very threshold of our 
own immediate time. 

" The intelligible form of ancient poets. 

The fair humanities of old religion, 

The power, the beauty, and the majesty, 

That had their haunts in dale or piny mountain. 

Or forest, by slow stream and pebbly spring. 

Or chasms and watery depths; — all these have vanished. 

They live no longer in the faith of reason." 

True, very true, but with this pleasant side of superstition and 
mythology, there has also vanished a world of painfulness and terror. 
Indeed, it is the afterthought of poetry that has economized the 
pleasant side of superstition and mythology. While these were full 
of lusty life, their painfulness and terror always were the dominant 
impressions. Indeed, it may be doubted whether these impressions 
were not exclusive of all others in the earliest stages of mankind. 
The original witch or sorcerer was one who had, or who professed to 
have, a knowledge of the world of spirits, resident in natural phe- 
nomena superior to that of others, and the ability to use this know- 
ledge for the advantage or disadvantage of his fellow men. Conse- 
quently, he was a person viewed with the most opposite regards of 
reverence and hate. With varying attributes he held his own in all 
the mighty civilizations of the ancient world. In Greece and 
Rome, before the Christian Era, there was a general belief in evil 
spirits and in the sorcerer's ability to engage their interest in favor 
of his friends. To understand how prevalent was the belief in evil 
spirits among the Jews and early Christians, one has but to turn to the 
New Testament. Stories of devilish possession darken every page. 
In the later Roman Empire, the magician was the wizard of the 



^6 

time. The Emperors did not doubt his skill to cast their horo- 
scopes, but they dreaded its effects. Marcus Aurelius, the best and 
wisest monarch that the world has ever seen, was an ardent patron of 
the magicians, and so was Julian the Apostate. 

The conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity added im- 
mensely to the belief in evil spirits, and their power to harm. The 
early Christiansdid not believemore earnestly in a personal God than 
they believed in a personal devil. They conceived him as the ruler of a 
hierarchy of malignant spirits. For so much the New Testament was 
their sut^cient warrant. But the Wesleyan's retort upon the Calvin- 
ist, " Your God is my Devil," has been the retort of every great 
schismatic faith upon those from whom its followers have come out. 
The devs — the gods — of the original Vedism, are the divs — the devils 
— of the Iranians. And so it happens that our words devil and 
divinity, have both the same root syllable. So nascent Christianity 
did not deny the existence of the pagan gods and goddesses, but it 
degraded them — made devils of them all. Thus was effected a won- 
derful increase in the population of the infernal world, and an 
immense accession to the stock of human terrors and anxieties and 
fears. The priests of the declining faith at once became magicians 
in the eyes of the conquering Galileans. The Christian emperors pro- 
scribed their practices, and visited their crimes with fearful punish- 
ments. In the meantime there was a kind of counter-magic in the 
Christian ritual. To fight the Devil with water was a favorite device. 
Lecky has one delightful illustration. A Christian who was racing 
horses with a pagan was worsted every time, because the pagan's 
horses were stimulated by magical rites. Whereupon the Christian 
went to St. Hilarion, who gave him a bowl of holy water, with which 
he sprinkled his horses and made such time as never had been made 
before. 

During the Dark Ages there was no abatement of the witchcraft 
superstition. It was absoluteiy universal. The records of the time 
are full of stories of possession and exorcism and miracles at the 
expense of the beleaguering hosts. Every saint must prove his 
saintship by an encounter with the Devil or some appearance in 
which he was disguised. But the fact remains to be accounted for 
that throughout all this period there were not as many executions 
for witchcraft as " often took place during a single decade of the 
15th and i6th centuries." Lecky's account of it, which is entirely 
rational, is that a variety of circumstances, the spread of heresy, the 
success of the Mohammedans, increased the average persuasion of the 
Devil's power, and that simultaneously the notion of a compact with 



77 

the Devil made its appearance and, at first slowly and afterward 
rapidly, obtained popular credence. This notion is the distinguish- 
ing peculiarity of modern witchcraft as opposed to that of ancient 
times. The essence of the notion was that a person deliberately 
agreeing with the Devil to give him his or her soul could thus acquire 
the power of working various miracles; going through the air at will; 
"raising the wind " and blowing down men's houses, trees and 
barns; blighting men's crops and poisoning their sheep and cattle; 
inflicting individuals with dreadful maladies and spreading pestilences 
far and wide. The black death in the 14th century which destroyed 
in six years twenty-five millions of people had a horrible effect upon 
the imagination. It induced a general depression or excitement of 
the nervous system. The dancing mania was one of its effects, 
afflicting thousands with its monstrous fantasy. But the most notice- 
able effect was the increase of witchcraft and the remorseless punish- 
ment of those convicted of its practices according to the canons of 
the time. The statistics of this delusion as it appeared in Europe in 
the 15th and i6th centuries dwarf to infinitesimal proportions the 
statistics of Salem witchcraft. In Germany there were, it has been 
estimated, a hundred thousand executions for witchcraft in a hun- 
dred years. The following are some of the figures to which Mr. 
Lecky's studies have given a wider currency than they before 
enjoyed. At Treves 7,000 victims were burned, 600 by one bishop, 800 
by another in a single year. At Toulouse, in France, four hundred 
witches perished at a single execution. A judge in Nancy claimed 
that in sixteen years he had made an end of Soo. In Spain Torque- 
mada was as severe with witches as with heretics, and reaped as 
plentiful a crop. In Geneva, before the days of Calvin, 500 witches 
were executed in three months. These figures, which all have to do 
with Roman Catholic persecutions, prove that witchcraft and its 
punishment have not been preeminently Protestant. In Sweden, 
only twenty years before the Salem outbreak, seventy persons were 
condemned and the most of them were burned. But Protestantism 
was of the same temper and opinion in this matter as the mother 
church. Said Luther, " I would have no compassion on these 
witches; I would burn them all." In England and in Scotland the 
Reformation was a signal for an outl)reak of exceptional atrocity. 
Baxter, the scholar of the Puritans par excellence^ was an elaborate 
expounder of the faith, and equally was Joseph Glanvil of the Estab- 
lished Church, one of its brightest ornaments. To hold Puritanism 
exceptionally responsible for the belief in witchcraft and its cruelty 
is to be ignorant of the most patent facts. When the belief was 



rapidly declining, John Wesley came to its support and with his cus- 
tomary energy did much to keep it on its legs among the Metho- 
dists throughout the iSth century. 

If we turn from Europe to the Colonies of North America there is 
convincing evidence that the belief in witchcraft was common to them 
all. In 1638 the Plymouth Colony issued a summary of offences 
" lyable to death " and one of them was " Solemn Compaction with the 
Divell by way of Witchcraft, Conjuration or the like." A similar 
law was enacted in Conn, in 1642, and from this time forward until 
the Salem tragedy hardly a year went by without some fresh enact- 
ment or some outbreak of superstition. The first execution was that 
of Margaret Jones in 1648, at Boston upon Lecture Day, 3.x\d propter 
hoc " there was a very great tempest at Connecticut which blew down 
many trees." Two years later Mary Johnson was executed at Hart- 
ford. She confessed that she had asked the Devil "to do that and 
tother thing" for her and he had carried out her wishes and helped 
her drive the hogs, and in general made himself a very useful devil. 
In 1653 Goodwife Knapp was executed for witchcraft at New Haven. 
In 1656 Anne Hibbins, in Boston; in 1662 two persons in Hartford. 
In the meantime there were many trials at which the evidence broke 
down. In 1681 one Mary Ross, in Plymouth, was "possessed with 
as frantick a Demon as ever was heard of." Hardly a community 
in New England was without a similar experience. In 1688 the 
children of John Goodwin, in Boston, were horribly bewitched and 
a poor creature, " crazy and ill-conditioned, an Irish Roman Cath- 
olic," was put to death in order to relieve their sufferings, but with- 
out effect. Thus we are brought to the threshold of the Salem 
tragedy. Doubtless the literature of " the Goodwin children" was 
m the hands of Ann Putnam, Mercy Lewis and the rest of " the 
afflicted," for it was extremely popular and widely read. Nor did 
the belief in witchcraft, nor the punishment of it, cease in the Col- 
onies with the Salem business. There was an execution in Albany 
in 1700. In 1706 Grace Sherwood was subjected to the trial by 
water in Virginia; /. e., tied hands and feet she was thrown into a 
pond, to float if she was indeed a witch, to drown if she was not. 
But that the accent of chivalry appropriate to the locality might not 
be wanting the sheriff was ordered by the court " not to expose 
her to the rain, as she might take cold, the weather being very rainy 
and bad." In 1712 a vigilance committee in South Carolina ordered 
that certain witches should be burned alive, but the sentence was 
only partly carried out. In 1728 a law against witches was reenacted 
in Rhode Island making it punishable with " the Pains of Death." 



79 

Thus both in Europe and America we find abundant evidence 
that Salem witchcraft was sustained by the concurrent faith and 
practice of the immediate and remoter past, and that an immemorial 
antiquity nourished its deepest root. It is true that already in Eng- 
land and upon the Continent voices of protestation, more or less clear 
and loud, had been raised against the superstition. But they had 
been few and far between and they had been overborne by other 
voices of more learned and more influential men who had come to 
the support of the delusion with unqualified assurance. John Wier, 
a physician of Cleves, was one of the earliest skeptics, 1563. But his 
skepticism only went so far as to argue that the witches were deluded 
by the Devil into thinking they could fly and that they had written 
in his book, and so on. Nevertheless it brought down upon him 
the learned wrath of Bodin, " the ablest man who had then arisen in 
France," as even modern rationalists admit with little qualification. 
His ponderous book appeared in 1581. In 1584 an English layman, 
Reginald Scott, attacked the superstition in a truly daring manner, 
but his attack made no impression. The delusion held its own. 
James I. was full of it, and wrote a book upon the subject, " full of 
wise saws and modern instances." .\t his instigation a new law 
against witches was enacted, under which all our New England 
witches were condemned. It made death their punishment upon the 
first conviction though no injury to any one could be charged against 
them. Even to Shakspere's truth-discerning eyes, Joan of Arc was 
an unquestionable witch. Proceeding down the century we find 
that Hobbes, who was skeptical of almost everything, was silent 
when it came to this, and while those who spoke against it, ever so 
cautiously, were men of little weight, — Filmer, and Wagstaff and Web- 
ster (all honor to their names), — those who stood out for the delusion 
were men of the most exalted character, the most learned scholars 
and most influential persons of their time. Such were Baxter and 
Glanvil and Sir Matthew Hale. The two latter had written a little 
while before the Salem business. Baxter writing after this, and with 
Cotton Mather's account of it in hand, his " Certainty of the World of 
Spirits," is the completest testimony that can be had that the belief 
in witchcraft was in 1692 the belief of the most able, earnest, con- 
scientious people of the time. In twenty years thereafter more than 
as many books by men of great ability and standing came to the aid 
and comfort of the declining superstition. The writings of Sir Mat- 
thew Hale and Glanvil had no doubt done much to strengthen 
the delusion in New England if it needed strengthening. ■' Certainly," 
says Matthew Arnold, " these three advantages, truthfulness of dis- 



80 

position, vigor of intelligence and penetrating judgment were pos- 
sessed in a signal degree by the famous chief justice of Charles Sec- 
ond's reign." And the gentleness of his temper was not less remarkable. 
Nevertheless in 1664 he sentenced two women to death for witch- 
craft upon evidence that was even slenderer if possible than that ad- 
duced against the Salem witches. Sir Thomas Browne who had written 
a confutation of several vulgar errors, one of the most learned men, 
one of the most graceful writers, one of the most skilled physicians 
of his time, was called as a witness and gave it as his sworn opinion 
that the persons were bewitched. Years afterward, in 1682, only ten 
years before the Salem trials, Sir Matthew Hale gave to this trial and 
its result his after-approbation and the Salem judges and accusers 
fortified themselves at every step with references to his great authority. 
Still nearer to the Salem tragedy was the great work of Joseph Glan- 
vil, Sadducismus Triumphatus — Sadduceism Triumphant. Not to 
believe in witchcraft was to be a Sadducee, and indeed an Atheist. 
Glanvil's book was the most learned, eloquent and elaborate defense 
of witchcraft ever made on English soil. And yet if we may trust the 
opinion of a modern scholar, the historian of Rationalism in Europe, 
" the predominating characteristic of the mind of Glanvil was an 
intense skepticism." Another critic says he was " the first English 
writer who had thrown skepticism into a definite form." Henry 
More came to the support of Glanvil with sufficient proofs, himself 
the judge, that all disbelievers were " buffoons, puffed up with nothing 
but ignorance, vanity and stupid infidelity." The great Cudworth 
whose, " Intellectual System of the Universe" has been a fountain of 
refreshment to the rationalism of our immediate time was of the same 
opinion, and witli Sir Thomas Browne and Glanvil argued that if 
there were no witches, then there was no God. 

Thus it appears that the belief in witchcraft which had such trag- 
ical results in Salem village and in the country around about in 1692 
was amply justified not only by the universal popular opinion but 
also by the most impressive learning of the time. If here and there 
in England there was some skeptic voice it was a childish treble in 
comparison with the manly bass of Hale and Glanvil, Cudworth and 
More. In America there was as yet no skeptic. There was ere long 
the voice of Robert Calef in Boston, but his book did not appear 
till the beginning of the i8th century and then was burned by the 
authorities of Harvard College in the College yard. So, it would 
have been a miracle indeed if the Salem Villagers had not believed 
and acted as they did. An immemorial tradition and a consensus 
of contemporary opinion, both popular and learned and judicial. 



81 

constituted an atmosphere which lent itself to their belief and actions 
as the wide heavens to an eagle's wings. Their religion, dearer to 
them than their lives, opposed no barrier but cleared the hapless 
way. The Bible was their creed, their faith in it was absolute. 
They had not yet arrived at the astuteness of the Morman Prophet 
with the compass, " which, when I had taken it in my hand, did turn 
which ever way I would. It meant for them exactly what it said. 
They did not talk of its infallibility with great swelling words and 
then go to work to explain everything away. They found, or thou^-ht 
they did, a personal devil and the doctrine of possession everywhere 
in the New Testament. They found in the Old Testament the clear 
command "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." The suggestion 
that " witch" was not the right translation but " poisoner" was to them 
a manifest suggestion of the Devil. Everything in their local situa- 
tion helped to make them superstitious. And then the sufferings of 
" the afflicted children !" — if they were not witchcraft, what were they ? 
Granted that it was a foolish question, like Mark Twain's " If it wasn't 
Adam's grave, whose was it ? in the Innocejits Abroad. But it was 
exactly such a question as has been asked a thousand times in the 
career of human thought, and, failing of an answer, seemed to justify 
the positing of an unknown cause to account for the unknown effect. 
Never, it may be easily believed, did any other outbreak of the 
witchcraft superstition, have so much to give it countenance as was 
here conspicuous and aggressive. But the details of the delusion were 
in singular accord with its details in other places, so far as they went. 
They betrayed a singular poverty of imagination. They were like the 
imaginary feasts of the insane which have all the savour of their cus- 
tomary gruel. The outfit was ridiculously small: the black dog or pig, 
the yellow bird, the Devil with his book for the witches to write in, 
the Sabbath convocation, the sensations of pricking and pinching, 
and so on. The same things are forever turning up with wearisome 
monotony in all the trials and in accounts of English witchcraft 
we arrest ourselves and wonder if we are not reading of New Eng- 
land matters. But while there was little or nothing in the New Eng 
land superstition that was not elsewhere to be found, it was devoid 
of many elements that gave to it, elsewhere, its most revolting aspect 
and its most distressmg. The New England superstition was a very 
mild and pleasant horror in comparison with the witchcraft supersti- 
tion of Continental Europe, the details of which in print are so 
loathsome and so horrible that they work like madness in the read- 
er's brain. And not less superior were our ancestors in their treat- 
ment of the accused. Their cruelties and indignities were tender 
5 



82 

mercies in comparison with the cruelties and indignities practiced in 
England and Scotland and Germany and France. 

Take it for all in all, there is nothing in the delusion of 1692 to 
make us think less reverently or kindly of humanity than is our wont. 
Its most painful aspects are the malicious temper of " the afflicted 
children" and the personal bias of the Rev. Samuel Parris's parochial 
quarrels on his burning zeal. That the children were the victims of 
illusion there can be no doubt and there can be as little that they 
pieced it out with manifold invention and nursed it in the interest of 
their private hatred and revenge ; but their deliberate wickedness 
only brings out into more bold reUef the heroic patience, the sweet- 
ness and fidelity of those whom they accused. White as a lily on a 
background red as blood is the pure-mindness of Rebecca Nourse 
and Mary Easty and their companions in distress against the base- 
ness of the time. Though by confessing they might have saved their 
lives, not one of them confessed. And of a piece with their fidelity 
was that of others, their neighbors and their friends, who like 
Nathaniel Putnam and Nathaniel Ingersoll endeavored to arrest their 
doom, though by so doing they well nigh insured their own. Believe 
me, friends, if all the doings of that dreadful time could be set down 
in order, the cruelty and perfidy and superstition would be lost in 
the white radiance of the devotion and the tenderness, the courage 
and the love. 

As for the phenomena of suffering and illusion that were at the 
root of all the misery, the most skillful science of our modern time, 
stands hardly less abashed before them than did the ignorance of 
1692. " Names for our diseases suitable to the dignity of our secre- 
tions" are not sufficient explanations. Hysteria and its allied disor- 
ders, so far as they are understood, make some things plain ; a little 
part of all. There are occasions when the occult side of things 
breaks through into the humdrum of our ordinary life. We are 
warned by such incucsions that there are stranger things in heaven 
and on earth than are dreamed of in our usual philosophy, and we 
are encouraged to believe, by the general advance of science, that 
the dark continent from which these incursions come will one day 
be explored and that its vast and nameless powers will minister with 
boundless energy to the unmeasured thirst of men for beauty, truth, 
and good. 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS NEITHER PURITANS 
NOR PERSECUTORS. 



^ gCJCtXTVC 

DELIVERED AT THE FRIENDS' INSTITUTE, LONDON, ON THE i8th 

of january, 1866. 
By Benjamin Scott, F.R.A.S. 

Chamberlain of the City of London. 

" The ignorance still existing on this subject is almost incredible. We find men of educa- 
tion who seem to have no exact information respecting the Pilgrim Fathers They can 
scarcely distinguish between them and the Fathers of the Primitive Church, the Conscript 
Fathers of Rome, the Patriarchs, or the Fathers before the Flood, Ouarterlv reviewers 
Members of Parliament, Christian divines, and ecclesiastical historians, speak of them with the 
same complacent disregard of facts. This is discouraging: but nothing is gained by yieldin-^ 
to prejudices, learned or illiterate ; and the only remedy is more lighty—T)~K Waddington "^ 



My address this evening is a task imposed upon me by circumstances, — a task 
which I should not vohintarily have assumed. It originated in the fact of my 
having listened lately to a truly eloquent lecture, delivered in this room, on Roger 
Williams, founder of the Rhode-Island Colony. The lecturer on that occasion 
reiterated (unintentionally of course) the statement to which some recent writers 
have given currency, that Roger Williams had experienced persecution for religion's 
sake at the hands of the noble men known to history as "the Pilgrim Fathers." 
Admiring the lecture, venerating the character of Roger Williams, greatly respect- 
ing the " Friends" before whom and in whose Institute I sat, yet I felt that truth 
was more to be admired, venerated, and respected, than aught else ; and my spirit 
was stirred within me to claim a hearing on behalf of men whose reputations 
should be regarded as a sacred inheritance by all, of every sect, who value true and 
undefiled religion. 

My request was, as I expected, readily granted by the members of the Friends' 
Institute ; and although many of them entertain opinions on this subject at present 
at variance with my own, yet I know too well their sacred regard to truth to doubt 
that they will rejoice to have afforded me this opportunity for explanation, even 
though it shoidd result in their surrendering opinions hitherto entertained. 

It will not be my office to narrate the eventful history of the Pilgrim Fathers, 
or that of Roger Williams, or, indeed, of their contemporaries in New England, 
excepting so far as incidental allusions to such histories may be necessary to the 
elucidation of my point. I shall find it convenient to obtain and make definite 
my object by supporting the following historical proposition : — 

" The Pilgrim Fathers were not Puritans but Separatists (who were the first 
advocates of perfect freedom of conscience at the Reformation) : they did not, as 
has been reported of them by some writers, persecute for conscience' sake either 
Roger Williams, the Friends, or any person." 

In submitting my proofs, I shall have occasion to encounter the statements of 
some recent writers of repute who have affirmed to the contrary ; but I must ask 
my hearers to bear in mind that the testimony of these writers, as they were not 
contemporaries, and know not the facts of their own knowledge, is not of more 



84 

weight than the statement of the first of them, with whom may have originated 
the misstatement which careless authors have merely reproduced. The same 
remark applies equally to those more eminent historians who have written on the 
other side. I shall call no such witnesses to-night. They are, in truth, the parties 
on their trial, and must stand or fall by the evidence of original documents. The 
reiteration of a statement can never alter the relations of falsehood and truth. 
Truth and error must continue truth and error eternally, even though the reverse 
be asserted eternally. To enumerate the testimony of successive writers, therefore, 
is vain upon such a point as that before us, unless any such had access to original 
documents newly brought to light. I shall not array, therefore, the testimony of 
conflicting historians, although the balance would decidedly preponderate on the 
side of the question which I espouse, whether those writers lie tested by their 
numbers or by their reputation. 

I propose first to show that the Pilgrim Fathers of Plymouth Colony — the only 
persons to whom that term has been historically applied, the first successful Anglo- 
Saxon colonists of America, and the real founders of New England — were not 
Puritans, as is often carelessly and erroneously reported, but Separatists . 

The difference between the early Puritans and the Separatists was not one of 
name merely, or I should not be found directing attention to the confusion which 
prevails in some minds on this subject. That difference was not superficial, but 
wide, fundamental, and irreconcilable. It involved nothing less than the whole 
question of enforced or free religion ; of religion by act of the State, or freedom 
of conscience ; of religion as an act of obedience to the ruler, or as an act of 
conscience toward God : the difference, in truth, which separated, and still 
separates, the State Churches from X^& free, all the world over. It involved, in the 
days of the Pilgrim Fathers, the difference between the dominant and persecuting 
Church which wielded the sword of the State and the persecuted victims of that 
sword. To confound things which so differ, to treat as one the persecutor and the 
persecuted, is to put " darkness for light, and light for darkness ; bitter for sweet, 
and sweet for bitter ;" and must result in making history an unmeaning jumble. So 
to confound persons and parties is, in this case, to inflict injustice upon the 
memories of those who have been shaping the good of the present, and whose 
principles form the best hope of the world's future. It has been asked, " Did the 
Pilgrim Fathers repudiate the term Puritan, as applied to themselves?" I reply 
that they were not, and could not at that day have been, afforded the opportunity 
of repudiation ; no such confusion of terms could then have arisen. Their enemies 
were too vigilant and unrelenting, and they and their predecessors were too truthful, 
to permit of their shielding themselves under the term of Puritan. I shall show 
you that the difference between the two parties in question was considered so 
fundamental and irreconcilable, that the one party put the other to death for their 
diversity of sentiment, until the persecuted party fled to a new world to secure that 
freedom of worship which was forbidden in the old. 

It will be necessary to the full elucidation of this point to show who were the 
immediate religious precursors of the Pilgrim Fathers ; and, for this purpose, it 
will be convenient to recur to that period of the Reformation in England when the 
Church of England was completely and finally established by law. 

The spiritual supremacy of the king, established and enforced by the Eighth 
Henry, had been reversed in Mary's reign ; and the Pope was once more declared 
by act of Parliament to be the spiritual head of the Church of England. It is to 
Elizabeth's reign, therefore, that we must look for the final settlement of the 



85 

ecclesiastical establishment which from and since that reign has been in close 
connection with the State in England. There is an early history of both State and 
free religion, and of the struggles of Presbyterianism in Scotland : but my argument 
lies to night in connection with the reformation of religion in England ; and the 
most convenient starting point, for many reasons, is that which I propose. 

Queen Elizabeth ascended the throne in 1558, and, in December of that year, 
issued a proclamation forbidding any change in the forms of religion until they 
should be deter>?iitied according to laiv. Immunity from Papal persecution was 
obtained by the change of rulers, but no freedom to worship according to conscience, 
either as it regarded Roman Catholics or Protestants. This is a point too much 
overlooked, and hence much confusion as to religious parties formed at this juncture. 
The queen was a good friend to Protestantism as opposed to Popery, but the bitter 
opponent of all Protestantism which did not square with her own and that of the 
State. The Act of Supremacy, declaring her the head of the Church, passed the 
first year of her reign, was followed closely by the Act of Uniformity, requiring all 
to worship on the State pattern and in the parish churches. Early in 1562, the 
work was completed by the adoption of the Articles of Religion ; and from this 
date, the Church of England being completely established by law, we may con- 
veniently trace that " Separation,'' which, with more or less distinctness, can be 
traced through all subsequent English history to this day. 

Side by side with the records of a powerful State Establishment, we find the 
frequent though incidental mention of a band of humble, earnest "Separatists," 
as they were termed, protesting against errors which the Reformation in England 
had failed to remove ; against the assumption by any human power, however 
august, of that headship which belonged of right to Christ ; and pleading for 
permission to worship according to the simplicity of form and practice of the 
primitive Christians. 

Such were the Separatists, at that day undivided on the subject of baptism, and 
other questions which have given rise to sects having various names. They consti- 
tuted, with the Roman Catholics, the only persons then objecting in Enc^land to 
the Church as by law established. They formed themselves, as did the early 
disciples, into distinct associations or churches, chose their own teachers, and 
regulated their own affairs. The Church, they maintained, was a spiritual asso- 
ciation, and should consequently be separate from the world and its rulers, and 
should be governed only by the laws of Christ as given in the New Testament : 
hence their distinctive appellation. Their simplicity of sentiment and moral 
conduct rendered them unpopular in a corrupt age ; their opposition to an endowed 
Church made them obnoxious to the clergy, who held to the wealth and honors of 
the State ; their recognition of Christ as the sole head of the Church gave mortal 
offence to the ruling powers, and afforded opportunity for charges of disloyalty and 
sedition, and directed against them the persecuting power of an intolerant court 
and hierarchy. In a word, they were the " Nazarenes " of the English Reforma- 
tion ; were regaided " as the filth and offscourings of all things." They worshipped 
only in secret places, — in ships moored in the River Thames, in obscure corners of 
the city, in the woods and fields which surrounded London and some other towns. 
We should know little concerning them but for the depositions of their relentless 
enemies, and the noble defences of their principles which persecution called forth, 
and but for the providential preservation of such documents by their opponents. 
They dwelt almost alone, and were scarcely regarded as part of the nation. 



86 

Of course a term of reproach for the party was soon forthcoming. The occasion 
was furnished by one Robert Brown, who, having ably advocated their principles, 
proved unfaithful to them,^ and accepted a living in Northamptonshire. This 
conduct of Brown caused to adhere to them the term of " Brownists," by which 
they were long known in history. 

Now for the other party, which arose at this juncture, The English reformers, 
many of whom returned from exile on the accession of Elizabeth, were greatly 
disappointed to find the new establishment virtually settled, and that the principles 
of the Reformation had not been carried farther in its constitution. ** The greater 
part of them, however, accepted the change, and with it the Royal Supremacy, 
Uniformity of Worship, and the Articles of Religion. Some took this course for 
the sake of peace and unity, others from less worthy motives ; all of them, how- 
ever, hoping to effect, in due time, further reformation, — a hope which was never 
to be gratified. This reforming, or evangelical party, within the Establishment, 
were termed " Puritans" and were known in history as the "EARLY Puritans," 
to distinguish them from a party which existed later in history, particularly at and 
after the period of the Commonwealth. 

We have thus the origin of two parlies formed at the birth of the Church of 
England, — parties differing widely both in principles and practice ; the Early 
Puritans within the establishment, and the Separatists, or Brownists, outside of 
that organization, declining to recognize the spiritual claims of the English 
sovereign, and contending for the exclusively spiritual character of His Church who 
had affirmed, " My kingdom is not of this world." 

The clearest historical evidence of the existence and organization of the .Separa- 
tists may be found from the very period of the State-Church Establishment, which, 
as we have shown, was finally effected in 1562. Five years later, we have a distinct 
historical notice of a company of Christians meeting at Plummer's Hall in Laurence 
Pountney Lane, in this city. ^ They were brought before the Lord Mayor, and on 
the 20th of June, 1567, committed to the Bridewell, on the banks of the Fleet 
Kiver, — a prison still existing in New Bridge Street, Blackfriars ; and it may interest 
you to know that the humble individual who addresses you is the only official 
person whose jurisdiction of committal there continues to this day. Truly the lines 
have fallen to us in happier and safer times and places. Had we met for our 
present purpose in those days, we should doubtless have been committed to prison 
for so doing ; and while vve do justice to those who by their faithful testimony and 
their blood won for us religious freedom, let us recollect that it is only thirty-nine 
years since it became possible for you, my hearers, being most of you Separatists, 
or for him who addresses you, being also of that conviction, to have held any office 
or place of trust, however humble, either in the service of the state or of this city. 
Gathered in the prison around the New Testament, which the Reformation had 
placed in their hands, this little band spelled out, by aid of the Holy Spirit's 
teaching, the spirituality of the true Church, its independence of the powers of the 
world, and its consequent right of self-government, subject to the laws of Christ. 
They accordingly formed themselves, in the prison, into a separate society or church 
of believers on the New-Testament model, selecting pastor and officers. The 
original document, with the names of all the parties appended, has recently been 
found in the State-paper Office. •* Richard Fitz, pastor, the deacon, and several of 

1 Vide Lansd. MSS. xxxiii. art. 13, 20 ; also Mill. Book of St. Olave's Grammar School. 

2 Zurich Letters. 

3 A parte ot a RcKiater, 23-37. 

4 Uncalendered, in Misc. Fascic. State-paper Office. 



87 

the members, died of the prison plague ; but, though deprived of their leaders, 
they continued to meet in private houses after their liberation. They were, not, 
however, permitted to worship in peace. A letter of thanks was addressed by the 
Privy Council to the Bishop of London for his zeal in "discovering their conven- 
ticles," in 1574.^ Next in order of date we meet with Robert Brown, whom we 
have already alluded to as unfaithful to his principles. 

Robert Harrison, a friend and companion of Brown, with courage and fidelity 
grasped the banner which Brown threw away, until the Act of the 23d Elizabeth 
(1582) made it treason to worship, except in accordance with the form prescribed 
by law. Upon this Harrison escaped to Middleburg, in Zealand, and became 
pastor there of a church of refugees from Protestant bigotry in high places. Brown 
had written several books on the nature of the Church, and its relation to the 
State ; and Harrison wrote also a treatise on true church-government, which is still 
extant." These works helped to spread Separatist principles, and soon brought to 
the scaffold those who were found circulating them. In rural places, the Separa- 
tists continued to convene in the name of the Lord Jesus. Dr. Freke complained 
" that their meetings" in Norfolk "were held in such close and secret manner," 
that he found it impossible to suppress them. ^ He apprehended, however, two of 
their leaders, John Copping and Elias Thacker, 1576, and kept them some years 
in prison. They were at last brought to trial, and convicted of the capital offence 
of circulating Separatist books. Sir Christopher Wray, Lord Chief Justice, wrote, 
"that they were condemned to die, and were to be executed immediately, not 
waiting for the possibitity of a reprieve."^ These martyrs died at Bury St. 
Edmunds, acknowledging the civil supremacy of the Queen, but maintaining that 
in spiritual matters they owed allegience to "another King, one Jesus." William 
Dennis, " a godly man," so says the record, was executed shortly afterward, in 
Norfolk, for the same offence.^ 

By these severities the feeble light was almost extinguished ; and, had it been 
of human origin, it must have gone out in darkness. " The Church," says Leigh- 
ton, "hath sometimes been brought to so obscure and low a point, that you can 
follow her in history only by the track of her blood." It was so here. But an 
ever-watchful Providence raised up two earnest men, fellow-students at Cambridge, 
to maintain the holy and undying principles for which the martyrs of Bury St. 
Edmunds had laid down their lives : I refer to John Greenwood and Henry 
Barrowe, who associated themselves with the scattered Separatists when their cause 
was at the lowest, and apparently hopeless. 

Greenwood, who had been private chaplain to a gentleman of fortune,^ was 
surprised one Lord's Day morning in 1586, while reading the scriptures at a private 
house in the parish of St. Andrew, by the Wardrobe in this city, and committed to 
prison. Two of his auditors were from Norfolk. '' Barrowe was also from Nor- 
folk, and connected with an aristocratic family there. He had entered as a law- 
student at Gray's Inn. On Lord's Day morning, Nov. 19, 1586, he, unsuspecting 
danger, went to visit his friend Greenwood and others imprisoned in the " Clink," 
a prison in the grounds of the Bishop of Winchester, in Southwark, his object 
being to show compassion " to those in bonds as bound with them." No sooner, 
however, had he arrived, than the jail-keeper detained him, saying he had orders 
from the Archbishop to do so.* Henceforward Greenwood and Barrowe remained 



1 Register of the Privy Council, 1574. 5 Ibid. art. 64, p. 163. 

2 16ino., 1583. In Brit. Mu.s. 6 Ibid. oix. art. 3. 

3 Lansd. .MSS. xxxiii. art. 13. 7 State Papers Domestic, 

4 Lansd. MSS. xxxviii. art. 64. 8 Hai'leian Mlscl. orig. edit. 4to, vol. Iv. p. 32t). 



in bonds, true to each other, and steadfast in the cause they had espoused. Here 
the persecutors, as ever, outwitted themselves ; for the brethren, although in the 
society of felons, and surrounded by all that was loathsome and pestilential, con- 
trived to write in confirmation of the truths for which they suffered. Dropping 
their scraps of MS. into the jug from which they drank, these were conveyed, day 
by day, by "Cicely," a faithful handmaid of Mrs. Greenwood, to a trusty friend, 
who sent them to Dort, in Holland, where they were printed and conveyed to the 
Separatist brethren. ^ Thus the Bible and printing-press supplied the place of the 
oral teaching which the State had suppressed. 

Six years latter, we find that, the prisoners having obtained liberty to go out 
during the day, a church was duly organized at Southwark, at the house of Roger 
Ripon." Of this little company John Greenwood was appointed teacher. In con- 
nection with this church we find another remarkable man, Francis Johnson. 
Originally a Puritan minister of good repute, he was, under peculiar circumstances, 
induced to throw in his lot with the Separatists. The circumstances were these : 
Having, while a Puritan, discovered at a printer's, in Holland, a copy of the book 
written in the Clink by Barrowe and Greenwood, he reported the same without 
delay to the English ambassador ; and he was charged to destroy the whole edition 
(We have here incidental evidence of the hostility of the Puritan to the Separatist, 
for which we contend.) Johnson seized the books, and burned the whole, with the 
exception of two copies, one of which, prompted by curiosity, he perused. It was 
the means of convincing him, and he embraced the faith he had labored to destroy.^ 
Returning from Holland, we find him associating witii Barrowe and Greenwood : 
he was elected a coadjutor of the latter, as pastor of the infant church in South- 
wark, and was imprisoned in the Clink for many years.* 

We find, at this period, the Puritan clergy of this city, under the orders of the 
Bishop of London, employed discreditably as spies. They visited the Separatist 
prisoners once every month, apparently for conference, but noting down their con- 
versations, that, in the event of their being brought to trial, these clerical inquisi- 
tors might be sworn. ^ The evidence so obtained amounted to nothing more than 
a declaration of their views as to the character and rights of the Church, but was 
deemed sufficient to secure their conviction. Barrowe and Greenwood were thus 
brought to trial, charged with having written books io lessen the Queen s prerogative 
in matters spiritual ; and the speech of counsel, which is still extant, charges them 
with claiming the right of a church to manage its own affairs. On the 23d of 
March, 1592, they were condemned to die. The Attorney- General followed them 
to their cells, entreating them to save their lives by recantation, but in vain."' The 
next morning they were brought out for execution, and bound to the cart ; but a 
reprieve stayed their execution. After a week's interval, they were again taken to 
execution, when a second reprieve arrived, and they returned again to prison, 
" amidst," as we are told, " the applause and rejoicing of the people." This mani- 
festation of popular sympathy was fatal : their enemies in Church and State became 
alarmed, and hurried forward their execution, which took place secretly and early 
in the morning of the 6th of April, 1593. 

One extract, out of many, which we might quote, from an extant letter of 
Barrowe's, proves that it was simple liberty of conscience which these men claimed, 

1 Egerton Papers, Camden Society. 

2 Harl. MSS. 6848, art. 3. 

'i Young's Chron. pp. 124, 425. 

4 See his Letters to Lord Burleigh. Lansd. MSS. Ixxy. art. 35, and Ixxvii. art. 2C. 

5 Bancroft's Survey, Hist. Papers, chap, vii, 
C Harl. MSS. 6849, art. 35. 



89 

and for which their lives were sacrificed. "Deal tenderly," he writes, "with 
tender consciences : we are yet persuaded that we should show ourselves disobe- 
dient and unthankful to our Master, except we hold fast this cause. . . . Why 
should our adversaries wish to persuade the civil magistrates to deal with us by the 
sword, and not by the Word; by /m(7«j, and not hy persuasions ? As for dun- 
geons, irons, close prison, torment, hunger, cold, want of means to maintain 
families, — these may cause some to make shipwreck of a good conscience, or to lose 
their life ; but they are not fit ways to persuade honest men to any truth, or dissuade 
them from errors. " 

John Penry, another remarkable man, educated at Oxford, joined the party 
just before the execution of Barrowe and Greenwood. He was by birth a Welsh- 
man. The great desire of his life was to introduce the gospel to his fellow-country- 
men, and he was the first to translate a portion of the Scriptures into Welsh. Dis- 
appointed in his efforts, he was led to examine the causes which hindered the spread 
of the gospel ; and finding it to consist mainly in the ignorance and indifference of 
the State clergy, he expressed his opinion as to the evils of the established system 
with honesty and fervidness. This naturally aroused persecution ; and he was 
brought before Archbishop Whitgift, and charged with heresy in having written, 
" That men, by whomsoever ordained, — whatever prelate or bishop or presbyter's 
hand had been upon them, — who did not do the work of an evangelist, but jieglected 
to preach God's word to the people, were no true minister of Jesus Christ." Penry 
replied, "If it is heresy, I thank God that he has taught me it from his Word." — 
" I say," exclaimed the exasperated prelate, " it is heresy, and thou shalt recant it." 
" Never !" rejoined the intrepid Welshman, "' never, God willing, so long as I live." 
He was liberated, however, but took again to preaching the gospel so dear to his 
heart. A warrant was issued accordingly, and he fled to Scotland with his wife and 
four infant children. Queen Elizabeth followed him with an autograph letter to 
the Scotch king, insisting upon his extradition. 

Proclamation was issued accordingly, in August, 1590, for his apprehension, 
and death denounced against any who should afford him food or shelter. With a 
price on his head, this intrepid evangelist travelled from Scotland to London, and 
cast in his lot with the poor Separatists of Southwark. ^ He was soon discovered, 
however, and cast into prison, first in this city, and afterward into the Queen's 
Bench in Southwark. 

Being subjected to the inquisitorial ordeal of spies, a private diary of his was 
found ; and for some expressions therein on the Queen's supremacy, construed as 
disloyal, he was condemned to die for imputed treason, in May, 1593. Letters 
written by him shortly before his death are extant, which for true pathos, tender 
affection to his wife and four infant children, and for resolute determination to lay 
down his life for the truth, are, I believe, without their equal in the annals of 
martyrology. One extract must suffice. Being pressed to save his life by recanta- 
tion, he replied, " If my blood were an ocean sea, and every drop thej-eof was a life 
unto me, I would give them all for the maintenance of this my confession. Far be 
it from me that either the saving of an earthly life, the regard -which I ought to have 
to the desolate outward state of a friendless widow atid four poor fatherless children, 
or any other thing, should enforce me, by denial of God's truth, to perjure mine own 
soul."^ And he would not and did not accept deliverance. Orders were sent 
immediately to the sheriff, who proceeded the very same day to hang him at a place 

1 state Papers, Scotland. 2 Penry's " Protestation," Lands. MSS. 



90 

called St. Thomas-a- Watering, about two miles from London Bridge, on the Kent 
Road. While Penry was at his dinner, the officers came to make him ready ; and 
at the unusual and unexpected hour of four, the same afternoon, he was put to 
death, the sheriff preventing his uttering a few words which he desired to address 
to the people. The place of his burial is unknown ; but 

" Though nameless, trampled, and forgot. 

His servant's humble ashes lie, 
Yet God has marked and sealed the spot, 

To call its inmate to the sky." 

Ihave thus traced the party of the Separatists, reproachfully termed " Brownists," 
from the date of the complete establishment of the Church of England in 1562 to 
the death of Penry in 1593. This has been essential to my argument ; for it is by 
these preliminary investigations that we ascertain what were the particular princi- 
ples of the party to which the Pilgrlm Fathers belonged. I now set out to prove 
that the exiles who left Leyden and the shores of England in 1620, and whom all 
writers arc agreed in terming "the Pilgrim Fathers," were of the sect of the 
Separatists, and were, moreover, the direct ecclesiastical successors of the noble 
men whose acts, principles, and sufferings have been briefly narrated. 

The idea of exchanging persecution and death in England for exile to some 
foreign shore originated with the martyrs Barrowe and Penry. The former in 1592 
bequeathed a fund to aid the persecuted church " in the event of their emigration;" 
while the latter, in his last letter, urged "the brethren to prepare for banishment 
in an unbroken company." The term "emigration," as it is now understood, does 
not convey an adequate idea of the alternative to which this persecuted people 
were reduced England at that date had neither colony nor permanent settlement 
on the American coast. Emigration was then, in fact, expulsion beyond the limits 
of civilization, and involved not only danger and suffering to all, but inevitable 
death to a large proportion of the settlers. This was so much the case, that, up to 
the time of the exile of the Pilgrim Fathers, no American colony had succeeded, 
though many had been attempted. 

Francis Johnson, already referred to as associated with Barrowe and Green- 
wood, was the first to put exile to the test. Papers lately discovered bring all the 
circumstances to light. He memorialized Lord Burleigh on behalf of the church 
in Southwark in 1593, shortly after Penry's martyrdom. No opportunity offered, 
however, till 1597 ; and in the interval many found their way to Holland, where 
toleration prevailed. In the latter year we find " the Brownists, falsely so called," 
petitioning under that name the Privy Council, to be allowed to go to Canada. ^ 
From the register of the Privy Council, it appears that permission was given, but 
restricted to the Lsland of Ranea. The voyage proved unavailing ; for the poor 
pilgrims in the ships " Chancewell " and " Hopewell" were not suffered to land. - 
Some also went to Newfoundland, a fishing station during part of the year only : 
but these returned also greatly disheartened and impoverished ; and, denied a 
resting-place in England, they also found a home in Holland.* 

Johnson there became their pastor ; and Daniel Studley, elder of the church in 
Southwark, condemned to death with Greenwood and Barrowe, but afterward 
reprieved, joined the same Christian society. They prepared a confession of their 
faith, and sent copies to the leading universities of Europe.* Here we have the 

1 State Papers, Domestic Series. 

2 Hakluyt. 

3 Bradford's Dialogues. 

4 " The Contessiou of Faytli of (.•eitayii EiiBlish People in Exile in the Low Countreyes," 1598. 



91 

first links in the chain of evidence which identify the .'Separatists of Southwark with 
the exiles in Holland. 

John Smyth, a Fellow of Cambridge and a pupil of Francis Johnson, adopted 
his views, and forms another link in our chain. He was imprisoned in the 
Marshalsea, and had conference, we are told, with two eminent Puritan divines, 
Mr. Dod and Mr. Hildersham, who, however, failed to convince him.^ (You will 
notice again the divergence of the views of the Separatists and Puritans.) Being 
liberated on the ground of failing health, he retired to Gainsborough in Lincoln- 
shire, founded a Separatist church there, and became its pastor. A second or 
branch church of the same faith was also established, meeting in the manor-house 
of William Brewster, at Scrooby, a village in Notts, on the borders of Yorkshire. 
The church at Scrooby was under the care of Richard Clyfton, a Puritan minister 
who hail joined the Separatist party, relinquishing his living at Worksop. ^ Clyfton 
afterward retired to Holland, affording another link in the connection we are 
tracing out. He was succeeded as pastor of the church at Scrooby by John Robin- 
son, M.A. This Robinson was afterward pastor of the church at Leyden, and 
organized the departure of the Pilgrims from that place to their home in the New 
World. William Brewster, at whose house the church met at Scrooby, was also 
one of the exiles termed Pilgrim Fathers, and filled subsequently the office of elder 
amongst them. While pastor at Scrooby, Robinson received into the little society 
there a youth named William Bradford, who also went out as one of the Pilgrim 
Fathers, became Governor, in course of time, of the Plymouth Colony in New Eng- 
land, and the historian of the Pilgrims, whose MS. volume, now in the Bishops' 
Library at Fulham, has established and cleared up many of the facts stated in this 
address. We have thus three of the leaders of the Pilgrims — Pastor Robinson, Elder 
Brewster, and Governor Bradford — connected with the Separatist church at Scrooby, 
the branch of that founded at Gainsborough by John Smith of Southwark. That 
all these men were Separatists from conviction appears from their works and letters 
still extant. Robinson particularly speaks of the painful struggles which he e.\pe 
rienced in breaking from his friends of the Puritan party.' 

One more connecting link between the Separatists of Southwark and the exiles 
in Holland must be pointed out before we accompany the Pilgrims across the 
Atlantic. Johnson, of whom we have spoken, when in prison was visited by 
Henry Jacob, a Puritan clergyman in Kent, who hoped to convince Johnson of his 
errors, but who was himself convinced of his erroneous views by the Separatist 
prisoner. Jacob hoped, with other sanguine men, to obtain, on the accession of 
James I., permission to practise his religion according to the light of conscience.'* 
But he was soon undeceived. Elizabeth was dead ; but the system survived. Being 
so unwise as to wait upon the bishop to " argue and reason the matter," as he tells 
us, he soon found that it was not a matter either for reason or argument ; for the 
bishop laid hold of him then and there, and committed him to the Clink. This 
was in 1605.^ 

Bancroft had now succeeded to the Primacy ; and the Puritans 7vithin as well 
as the Separatists zuithotii, the Establishment, began to feel the weight of his per- 
secuting hand. In 1604, excommunication, with all its attendant penalties, was 
added to the pains attending nonconformity. Three hundred of the clergy were 
in one year deprived of their livings. Chamberlain, referring to this period, says, 

1 " Paralleles, Censures, and Observations," 1603. 

2 Hunter's "Founders of >'ew Plymouth," p. 40. Smyth's " Paralleles." 

3 Robinson's Works, vol. ii. pp. 51, 52. 

4 " Reasons, &c.," pref. p. 2. 6 Lambeth MSS. 



92 

"Our Puritans go down on all sides; and, though our new Bishop of London 
proceeds but slowly, yet he hath deprived, silenced, or suspended all that continue 
disobedient."^ I quote this as particularly defining the term •' Puritan," as applied 
at this date to the nonconforming clergy of the Church of England. 

Persecution was not relaxed against the Separatists. Bradford, in his journal, 
informs us how the members of the churches in the North were watched by 
informers day and night, imprisoned, and prevented assembling. " Seeing," he 
tells us, " themselves thus molested, and that there was no hope of their continu- 
ance there, by a joint consent they resolved to go into the Low Countries, where 
they heard there was freedom of religion for all men ; as also sundry from London, 
and other parts of the land, that had been e.xiled and persecuted for the same 
cause, were gone thither, and lived in Amsterdam and other places in that land."* 

I must pass over the difficulties, trials, and sufferings of these poor people, their 
oft-attempted escape and failures. It was more than a twelvemonth before the 
whole party, with women and children, could elude the cruel vigilance of their 
enemies. They escaped from time to time, as opportunity offered, from the coast 
near to the ports of Boston, Grimsby, and Hull. Robinson and Brewster, we are 
told, " were of the last, and staid to help the weakest over before them."* 

Twelve years they spent in Amsterdam and Leyden, not without struggles for 
maintenance, but enjoying peace in the exercise of their religion, to which they had 
long been strangers. Robinson became their pastor ; Brewster was appointed 
elder ; while Henry Jacob, having been liberated from the Clink, joined them, and 
wrote a treatise on church-government ; which again proves incontestably that he, 
with his associates, were decided and uncompromising Separatists. Time does not 
admit of my quoting him. 

In 1617 we find him again in Southwark, seeking permission for the church 
there to worship ox\\y privately, and "not in public places ;" but in vain. The 
churches in Holland and in Southwark abandoned all hopes of toleration at home, 
and began in earnest to address their thoughts to emigration to some land in which 
their children would retain their language and nationality with liberty of Christian 
worship 

On the gth of November, 1620, the little, solitary, adventurous " May-Flower," 
on its peaceful errand, freighted with the seed of a future nation, unheeded by 
human eye, but not unregarded by Him who "sees the end from the beginning," 
sighted Cape Cod, on the coast of Massachusetts, — a shore covered with snow, and 
formidable with shoals and breakers. On the iith of November, the Constitution 
of the future Colony was signed by all the party in the cabin of " The May-Flower." 
On the 15th the vessel found safe anchorage in Plymouth Bay, so named from the 
port of departure in England. On the 2ist of December (Forefathers' Day of the 
Americans) the wearied, storm-tossed party found rest, landing on the well-known 
Plymouth Rock, — " the door-step into a world unknown, the corner-stone of a 

NATION." 

" There were men with hoary hair 

Amid that pilgrim band ; 
Why had they come to wither there. 

Away from their childhood's land ? 
There was woman's fearless eye, 

Lit by her deep love's truth ; 
There was manhood's brow serenely high. 

And the fiery heart of youth. 

1 Letter dated Feb. 26, 1605. 2 " Of Plimoth Plantation," Fulham MSS. 3 Ibid. 



93 

What sought they thus afar? 

Bright jewels, or the mine ? 
The wealth of seas, the spoils of war ? — 

They sought a faith's pure shrine ! 
Ay, call it holy ground, 

The soil where first they trod : 
They left unstained what there they found, — 

Freedom to worshit god."i 

But did they, as the poet sings, "leave unstained what there they found, — 
freedom to worship God " ? This is the question to be next determined ; and as 
poets, as well as historians, make sad havoc of facts, I proceed to prove by the 
light of original and extant documents that the Pilgrim Fathers remained faithful 
to their principles. 

But first allow me to digress, briefly to allude to a remarkable letter from John 
Smyth, addressed to the church at Scrooby, of which he was pastor. In it he 
addressed to them words, which, by the light of subsequent events, we may almost 
regard as prophetic. " You are few in number," he writes ; " yet, considering that 
the kingdom of heaven is as a grain of mustard-seed, small in the beginning, I do 
not doubt that you may in iime: groiv up lo a multitude, and be. as it were, a great 
tree full of fruitful branches."^ 

The fact is sublime, and calculated to attract the attention of the world some 
day, that a few poor, persecuted villagers and humble worshippers at Scrooby, who 
would have gone to their graves in silent obscurity had not persecution driven them 
into unconscious fame, — that three of them at least — Robinson, Brewster, and 
Bradford — became the fomiders of a nation of thirty viillions of free ivorshippers. 
The United States of America may well be termed a "great tree full of fruitful 
branches :" truly " the little one has become a thousand, and the small one a strong 
nation." 

And here let me say, my American hearers, who have honored me by your atten- 
dance to-night, here is the fountain-head, or one chief fountain-head, of all your great- 
ness. This remote hamlet of Nottinghamshire, adjacent to the borders of Yorkshire, 
which now echoes to the whistle of the Great Northern Railway, — here, in the old 
manor-house of SCROOBY (the outline of whose moat may still be seen from the platform 
of the station), this ancient hunting-seat of the Archbishop of York ; the resting-place 
of Queen Margaret of Scotland, daughter of Henry VIL, on her journey to Scotland 
in 1503 ; here, where disappointed Wolsey retired after his fall, to discover too late 
that fidelity to God brings a higher and more certain blessing than the most devoted 
■ fidelity to an earthly king ; here, where Wolsey's royal rival, Henry, passed a night 
in 1541 ; here, where James the First solicited of the Archbishop " that he might 
take his royal pastime in the forest of Sherwood," — in this very manor-house, or in 
one of its offices, met the simple humble Separatist worshippers, Robinson, Brewster, 
and Bradford, the leaders of the Pilgrim band, the founders of the civil and religious 
liberties of America. I had the honor to lay, a few years since, the memorial stone 
of a building in Southwark for the use of the church, the successors of the Separa- 
tists of the sixteenth century, on a spot closely adjacent to that on which Penry was 
martyred. To that memorial-building grateful Englishmen and Americans contri- 
buted. Would it not be appropriate, let me ask, if some humble but serviceable 
memorial were erected on the site of the manor-house at Scrooby, to which Ameri- 
cans in future days, when the sublime story is re-written, and they shall become 
better acquainted with their own antecedents, might direct their steps as to a shrine 

1 Mrs. Hemans. 2 " A Lettre written to certain bretheren in S , by John Smyth." 



94 

sacred to them as the tomb of Washington, who gave them independence, or as the 
grave of their martyr President, who preserved them from dismemberment, and 
proclaimed liberty to the slave ? 

But to return to my argument. The Pilgrim Fathers were Separatists. Did 
they retain their principles, or repudiate them, on their arrival in the New World ? 
Did they, as the poet asserted, "leave unstained what there they found, — freedom 
to worship God"? The probabilities of the case would certainly lean to the side of 
that conclusion. If they had clung to their principles through persecution, suffer- 
ing, and the loss of all things, it would be improbable in the extreme that they should 
repudiate their most cherished convictions upon crossing the Atlantic. True it is, 
that human nature is often inconsistent, but not that part of it which has passed 
through tlie crucible of trial and the furnace of suffering for the sake of principle. 
' ' Can gold grow worthless that has stood the touch?" No : there is a prima facie 
difficulty in the outset in believing that the Pilgrim Fathers persecuted for conscience' 
sake. Bear in mind also, that, "had they been mindful of that country whence 
they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned." "The May- 
Flower" stood in the harbor with sail flapping for many a week. Just one-half of 
the party died during the first winter from privation and exposure, but no one 
returned. 

"O strong hearts and true ! — not one went back in ' The May Flower ;' 
No, not one looked back who had not set his hand to that ploughing. "^ 

Home, friends, native country, comfort, the worlcfs applause, — all might have 
been theirs had they changed their opinions, had they abandoned their princi])les. 
One, Edward Winslow, returning to transact some business in England, was im- 
prisoned on landing, and kept close prisoner for seventeen weeks : why endure this 
if he had been prepared to abandon views whicli he found untenable ? The 
charge that the Pilgrim Fathers persecuted is as unreasonable as it is unhistorical, 
and about as probable as that the Friends should, upon landing, have entered into a 
military convention with the other colonists for the extermination of the Indians, or 
that the Jesuits should have established a society to send the Scriptures to the people 
in their native tongue. Had no other course been open to me, I should have been 
well content to rest my case upon tliis a priori argument, and to have thrown upon 
any opponent the onus of producing one word of original or contemporaneous history 
in support of his opinion. I am not, liowever, reduced to this course, having 
original documentary evidence of a positive character that is perfectly conclusive, 
that what the Pilgrims were upon landing, that they remained through evil report 
and good report ; that, when charged with their Separatist views, they did not abjure 
them, although they repudiated the term of reproach ; that, in an age when the 
majority of men were persecutors in heart and in practice, they held aloof from, 
and reprobated, such practices ; that they sheltered and acted kindly toward the 
persecuted, Roger Williams included ; and that when they, the Pilgrim Fathers, 
were laid in their graves, and the Friends arrived in New England, their sons and 
successors were advocates of toleration, and supporters of the Friends. The evi- 
dence is voluminous : the only difficulty I experience is in reference to selection and 
condensation, so as to bring the subject within the compass of this address. 

I have failed to find any writer, who, until very recent times, say the present 
century, has given currency to the allegation which I am engaged to disprove, — that 
the Pilgrim Fathers of Plymouth persecuted for conscience' sake. I have been 

1 Longfellow. • 



95 

referred to Sevvell's "History of the People called Quakers." But he does not 
affirm the matter in question ; indeed, if we regard his chronology as correct, he 
acquits the Pilgrim Fathers of any share of the persecutions alluded to. He was 
evidently little acquainted with religious parties outside the society whose history he 
records ; so that his statements upon this point are worthless, either for condemna- 
tion or acquital. 

Speaking as I do before members of the Society, I must devote a little time to 
his statements, which, under other circumstances, I should pass by as of no weight 
in regard to this matter. 

In Sewell (vol. i. pp. 6, 7) I find the following : — 

" The bishops under Queen Elizabeth were content with the Reformation made 
by Cranmer : yet it pleased God, in the year 1568, to raise other persons that testified 
publicly against many of the remaining superstitions ; and although Coleman, Burton, 
Hallingham, and Benson were imprisoned by the Queen's orders, yet they got many 
followers, and also the name of Puritans. And notwithstanding the archbishop, to 
prevent this, drew up some articles of faith to be signed by all clergymen, yet he 
met with great opposition in the undertaking ; for one Robert Brown, a young 
student of Cambridge (from whom the name of Brownists was afterward borrowed), 
and Richard Harrison, a schoolmaster, published in the year 1583 some books, 
wherein they showed how much the Church of England was still infected with 
Romish errors ; which was of such effect, that the eyes of many people came thereby 
to be opened, who so valiantly maintained that doctrine which they believed to be 
the truth, that some of the most zealous among them, viz., Henry Barrow, John 
Greenwood, and John Penry, about the year 1593, were put to death because of 
their testimony, more (as may very well be believed) by the instigation of the clergy 
than by the desire of the queen. 

"After the death of Queen Elizabeth, \\'hen James I. had ascended the throne, 
the followers of those men suffered much for their separation from the Church of 
England ; but very remarkable it is, that even those of that persuasion, of which 
many in the reign of King Charles I went to New England to avoid the persecution 
of the bishops, afterward themselves turned cruel persecutors of pious people by 
inhuman whippings, &c., and lastly by putting some to death by the hands of a 
hangman." 

A more involved and illogical statement was never penned. I must devote a 
few minutes to its dissection. 

The writer first enumerates certain reformer:^ in the Church of England, — to 
wit, Coleman, Burton, Hallingham, and Benson. He states, truly enough, that 
they got the name of " Puritans ;" that they drew up articles of faith to be signed 
by ^'clergymen." All this is quite true ; and he might have added that which I supply 
from their petition to the I-'rivy Council, in which they say of the " Brownists," or 
Separatists, "We abhor these, and we ptinisk them."^ 

Sewell then goes on to enumerate correctly other sufferers for conscience' sake, 
beginning with Brown (from whom he says the term " Brownists " was borrowed), 
Richard Harrison, Henry Barrowe, John Greenwood, and John Penry. He tells 
us further, that the three latter were put to death about 1593, by the instigation of 
the clergy more than by desire of the queen ; that their followers in James's reign 
suffered much for their " j-^ar(Z^/t>« " from the Church of England. All which is 
perfectly true. 

We have here, then, tjvo distinct parties : one of them described as ^' Puj-itans" 
and "clergymen," imprisoned for desiring "reform" in the Church of England, 
temp. Elizabeth ; another party executed in the same reign for "separation" from 
that Church, and treated with severity in the reign of James I. 

1 " Parte of a Register," p. 129. 



•06 

Here are the premises ; now, then, for the conclusion : " But very remarkable 
it is, that even those of that persuasion who went out in Charles the First's reign 
persecuted by whipping and hanging." 

" Those of that persuasion." Which persuasion ? This is the question. Sewell 
does not tell us ; and it is evident that he did not know the difference between the 
two persuasions enumerated, and that one "abhorred" the other, and "punished" 
them even to death, and had done so for half a century. Could these persons of 
undecided persuasion be the Pilgrim Fathers? Certainly not, according to Sewell ; 
for the Pilgrim Fathers emigrated, according to every authority, in 1620 (eighteenth 
year of James the First) ; while Sewell tells us that it was "persons of that persua- 
sion who went out in the reign of Charles the First" who persecuted by whipping 
and hanging. He acquits, therefore, the Pilgrim Fathers ; for those who emigrated 
in James's reign could not be those who came to New England in the following 
reign. The truth is, that Sewell, however reliable an authority he may be as regards 
the Society of Friends, evidently did not know, and failed to notice, that he was 
writing of two perfectly distitict religious parties, and, ignorantly confounding these 
parties, draws conclusions which are historically worthless. I may remark that 
Sewell wrote in Holland, in low Dutch, of events which happened in England and 
America, and was probably in no position to speak from original documents, except- 
ing such as were supplied by the Society of Friends. From some such involved 
history, it is probable that the whole confusion of dates and parties has arisen. 

The facts, so far as they can be compressed into a paragraph, are these. The 
colony of Virginia (South) was first attempted by settlers exclusively Episcopal. 
But that settlement resulted in total failure. The Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plym- 
outh in 1620 (i8th James I.) ; and they were, as I have shown. Separatists, or 
Brownists. The THIRD colony or settlement was that planted at Salem and Boston, 
Massachusetts, by Puritans, in 1630 (5th Charles I.) ; that party having in turn 
come under the persecuting hands of the English prelates Bancroft and Laud. It 
was these Puritans of Massachusetts or Boston who passed acts against the Quakers, 
and were guilty of cruel intolerance, which has been ignorantly charged to the 
account of the Pilgrim Fathers. 

I now proceed to prove that the Pilgrim Fathers of Plymouth remained Separa- 
tists ; that they neither repudiated the term, nor relinquished their principles ; that 
they received Roger Williams into their church, and sheltered and helped him ; that 
they had gone to their graves before the first of the Friends came to New England, 
and therefore had no opportunity (in the flesh at least) of persecuting them ; and 
that their successors — some of them, at all events — inherited their principles, and 
advocated toleration of the Friends. 

And, first, as to the Pilgrim Fathers retaining their Separatist views. The 
colony of Plymouth was dependent greatly upon the " merchant adventurers " of 
London, who were of the State religion, no other being tolerated. From a corres- 
pondence which survives, we learn that the Pilgrims were directly charged by the 
Merchant Company \\\\\\ holding Separatist views.' A letter written by Mr. 
Sherley, one of the merchants, dated 25th January, 1625, states that charges had 
been brought against the colonists, that they allowed ' "diversity about religion. " They 
replied, " We know no such matter: for there was never any controversy or opposi- 
tion, either public or private, to our knowledge, since we came." But what was 
the religion on which all were agreed ? In the same year, another letter charges 
them "with receiving a man into their church, that, in his confession, renounced 
1 Bradford's " Plymouth Plantation." 



97 

universal, national, and diocesan churches ; by which (say they) it appears, that 
though you deny the name ' '?>xovimsX?,,' yet you practice the same, and therefore you 
sin against God in building up such a people." The adventurers demanded that 
they should conform to their views of governing the colony ; that the " French dis- 
cipline" (whatever that may have been) should be practised ; and •' that IMr. Robin- 
son and his company at Leyden should not be allowed to join them, unless they 
would reconcile themselves to the Church by a recantation under their hands ." This 
recantation was never forthcoming. Mr. Sherley wrote again at this juncture, and 
tells the colonists that a party of the merchants " were for a full desertion and for- 
saking of them ;" and he adds, "It is pretended that you are ' Brownists ;' " and he 
adjures them to leave their " evil views." This advice, though well intended, was 
not adopted. Through good and evil report they held to their principles. ^ 

We must now turn our attention to the Massachusetts colony. Finding the 
colonists of Plymouth to be holding their ground, after eight years' struggles, the 
Puritan party in England, who had now come in turn to experience the rigors of 
persecution, formed a large company in 1628. The first fleet of three vessels left the 
Isle of Wight in May, 1629. There can be no question as to their religious views ; 
for in their farewell address they say, " We do NOT go to New England as Separa- 
tists from the Church of England, though we cannot but separate from the cor- 
ruptions in it."- Some, however, of the Separatists found a passage in their ships, 
and joined their friends at Plymouth ; and an outcry was accordingly raised against 
the company. John White, promoter of the company, in 1630 found it necessary 
to meet the charge thus raised. " I persuade myself," he says, " there is no Separa- 
tists known unto the Governor ; or, if there be any, it is far from their purpose, as 
it is far from their safety, to continue him among them." In the course of the 
voyage it was discovered that Ralph Smith, a minister who had adopted Separatist 
views, was on board. Cradock writes on behalf of the company to the Governor, 
Endicott, April 17, 1629, " Passage was granted to him (Smith) before we under- 
stood his difference of judgment in some things from our ministry ; and, though we 
have a very good opinion of his honesty, we give you this order, that, unless he will 
be conformable to our government, you suffer him not to remain ivithin the limits 
of your grant." Here is the first persecuting edict, and it is directed against a 
Separatist minister by a Puritan company. 

Ralph Smith was kept a long time in isolation, — a sort of spiritual quarantine. 
Now, mark the different treatment he received from the Pilgrim Fathers of Plymouth. 
Bradford, the Governor, writes, "There was one Ralph Smith and his wife and 
family that came over into the Bay of Massachusetts, and sojourned at present with 
some straggling people that lived at Nantuckett." Bradford then .says that Smith 
was reduced to great straits, and had requested a passage to Plymouth and shelter 
there ; and adds, " He was here accordingly kindly entreated and honored, and had 
the rest of his goods sent for, and exercised his gifts among us, and afterward was 
chosen into the ministry, and so remained many years."* Hubbard, an early histo- 
rian of New England, says, "He, Smith, approved the rigid way of Sepai-ation 
principles." 

We now come, in chronological order, to the case of Roger Williams. He 
arrived in the ship " Lyon" at Boston on the 5th of February, 1630-31. He was 
from Wales, a Separatist. . . . It is foreign to my purpose to contend as to the 
particular views of Williams. I entirely indorse the glowing eulogy pronounced 

1 Ibid. 2 Cotton Mather's " Magnalia," Book III., Part II., chap. I. 

3 Bradford's " Pllmoth Plantation." 



98 

upon him by Edward Newman on a previous evening. He was a man of whom the 
" world was not worthy." He belongs to the Church of Christ, — to Friends, and to 
Separatists, and to Baptist, alike. He held the principles of church polity which are 
common to the free churches ; and it will be enough to say of him, that he is doubtless 
a member of that " church of the first-born whose names are recorded in heaven." 

Let us gather from his own pen what he was in reference to the Pilgrim Fathers 
of Plymouth. In a letter addressed by him, late in life, to John Cotton of Plym- 
outh, he says, "In New England, being unanimously chosen teacher at Boston 
before your dear father came, divers years, I conscientiously refused, and withdrew 
to Plymouth, because I durst not officiate to an unseparating people, as upon 
examination and conference I found them (i.e., of Boston) to be.^ 

This is conclusive : he was Separatist in his views, and could not minister to an 
unseparating church, such as that established at Salem or at Boston ; and he with- 
drew to the more congenial religious society of the Plymouth colony. This is con- 
firmed by what follows. The church at Salem, originally a Puritan settlement, 
having advanced under the direct influence of the Pilgrim Fathers to Separatist 
views, invited R. Williams to become their pastor. Winthrop, Governor of Massa- 
chusetts, in his journal of the I2th of April. 1631, informs us how the Boston 
Council opposed the arrangement. He says, "At a Court holdcn at Boston (upon 
information of the Governor that they of Salem had called Mr. Williams to the office 
of a teacher), a letter was written from the Court to Endicott to this effect, that, 
whereas Mr. Williams had refused to join with the congregation at Boston because 
they would not make a public declaration of their repentance for having coini/iunion 
with the Church of England while they lived there, therefore they marvelled they 
would choose him without advising with the Council ; and withal desiring him that 
they would forbear to proceed till they had conference about it."^ The church at 
Salem, notwithstanding this dictation, received Mr. Williams. He was, however, 
obliged to retire from Salem before the opposition of the Boston Council. Where 
did he retire to? To the Pilgrim Fathers' colony at Plymouth, where he was 
received with marked respect and kindness ; and he became assistant to Ralph 
Smith, who had been driven out before him by the Puritan colonists. Governor 
Bradford, in his journal, says, " He, Williams, was freely entertained amongst us 
according to our poor ability, exercised his gifts amongst us, and after some time 
was admitted a member of the Church, and his teaching was well approved." This 
does not look like persecution. A diversity of opinion, however, afterward occurred ; 
and, at Williams's own desire, he returned to the church at Salem. . . . The 
opinions referred to were political rather than religious. . . . After much con- 
flict with Massachusetts authorities on various points, Roger Williams was ordered 
to depart out of their jurisdiction, Sept. 3, 1636. He was allowed, however, to 
remain until the following spring, when he proposed to form a settlement at Narra- 
gansett Bay. The Boston authorities did not consider him safe at that distance, and 
gave orders to ship him to England, — an unwarrantable act of intolerance, consider- 
ing that they themselves were fugitives from persecution at home. How did the 
Pilgrim Fathers regard and treat Williams at this juncture ? 

Winslow, one of them, writes on this occasion, " I know that Mr. Williams, 
though a man lovely in hi<i carriage, and whom I trust the Lo7-d will yet recall, held 
forth on the unlawfulness of our letters-patent from the king, and would not allow 
the colors of our nation."' He regrets his political views, particularly dangerous to 

1 Original Letter in MSS. of Massachusetts Historical Society. 

2 Winthrop's " History of New Enplanil." 

3 Winslow's " Hypocrisie Unmasked," &c. 



99 

the infant colony at this crisis ; but he has nothing but kindly words as to his char- 
acter, and trust in God to recall him. Roger Williams confirms this under his own 
hand. From Seekonk (Rehoboth) he writes, " I received a letter from my ancient 
FRIEND Mr. Winslow, the Governor of Plymouth, professing his own and others' 
love and respect for me, yet LOVINGLY advising me, since I was fallen into the edge 
of their bounds, and they were loath to displease the Bay (the colony of Massachu- 
setts), to remove to the other side of the river ; and there he said, I had the country 
before me, and / 77iight be as free as themselves, and we should be loving neighbors 
together"^ This was good as well as kind advice, and promoted peace, and resulted 
in security and freedom to Williams. In another letter, Williams informs us that 
the good offices of Gov. Winslow did not stop at good and kind advice : he writes, 
" That great and pious soul Mr. Winslow, melted, and kindly visited me at Provi- 
dence, and put a piece oi gold into the hands of my wife for our supply."^ Beyond 
this expression of desire, for the sake of peace with their neighbors of the Bay, that 
Williams would cross the river to found his new settlement, there is not one word of 
MS. history which can be construed into an act of persecution or unkindness on the 
part of the original settlers of New Plymouth ; while, on the other hand, Williams 
ever speaks gratefully of the kind treatment and loving advice which the Plymouth 
colonists extended to him. 

We now come, in chronological order, to the alleged persecution of the Friends 
by the Pilgrim Fathers, — an allegation, which, but for the wide-spread credit it has 
obtained amongst the members of a truth-loving society, I should treat with the dis- 
respect which it deserves. Williams was a contemporary of the Pilgrim Fathers in 
New England : the Friends were not. Persecution of the Friends by the Pilgrim 
Fathers was chronologically impracticable. George Fox, a good authority on such 
a point, says, *' In 1655 many went beyond the sea, where truth also sprung up ; and 
in 1656 it broke forth in America.'"^ 

It will be seen that this was thirty-six years after the landing of the Pilgrim 
Fathers in 1620 (a date which cannot be shaken). In 1656 every leader of that 
party whose name history has recorded was in his grave. John Carver, first Gov- 
ernor, died in 1621 ; John Robinson died in 1625 ; Samuel Fuller in 1663 ; Elder 
Brewster in 1643 ; Edward Winslow (Williams's friend and correspondent) died in 
1655 ; Myles Standish in 1656 ; and in the same year William Bradford of Scrooby, 
historian of the party, closed his career, in the 69th year of his age, in the very year 
in which George Fox says that the truth held by the Friends broke forth in America. 
At this date great changes had taken place in New England. Plymouth was no 
longer an independent colony, but only one of a confederation of the four New- 
England settlements of Plymouth, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Haven ; 
and we now come in order to inquire wliether the successors of the Pilgrim Fathers 
who had now passed ofT the scene forgot the religious principles of their fathers. I 
am not called to prove this ; but it is very satisfactory to find that some of the sons 
and successors of the Pilgrim Fathers suffered obliquy and made sacrifices for their 
hostility to the persecuting acts of the Council in relation to the Friends. 

Isaac Robinson, son of John Robinson, pastor of the Pilgrims at Leyden, was 
disfranchised for his opposition to the laws against the Quakers in 1659, and removed 
from his place in the government of Plymouth colony. At the period at which we 
have now arrived, an important branch settlement and church of Separatists had 
been formed at Scituate, near Plymouth. This settlement was formed of members 



1 Roger Williams's Letter to Major Mason, in Mass. Hist. Coll., i. 276. 
2 Ibid., 275. 3 Fox's " Journal.' 



100 

of the Separatist churcli in Southwark under Henry Jacob, to whom we have had 
occasion to refer. It was joined in 1634 by John Lothrop, also pastor of the South- 
wark church ; and, on his arrival at Scituate, some of the Plymouth colonists went 
to join them. They are known in the Colonial History as " the men of Kent." 
Amongst those who joined and befriended the church at Scituate we find Isaac Rob- 
inson, just referred to ; also Timothy Hatherley and James Cudworth. The church 
was accustomed to meet at the house of the latter! I have said that Isaac Robinson 
suffered disfranchisement and removal from office for befriending the Quakers. Cud- 
worth and Hatherley also suffered from the same cause. Cudworth was assistant to 
the Governor in I656-58, and a Commissioner of the United Colonies in 1657. In 
1658 he fell under the displeasure of these Commissioners '■'because he would not set 
his hand to the laws which had been propounded to the several courts to be enacted 
against the Quakers. " He was left out of the magistracy and Board of Commissioners, 
and deprived of his military command. In 1659, being returned as a deputy by the 
town of Scituate, the Court rejected him. A letter of his, in 1658, shows plainly 
what were his sentiments. "The anti-Christian and persecuting spirit," he says, 
" is very active, and that in the powers of the world. He that will not lash, perse- 
cute, and punish men that differ in matter of religion, must not sit on the bench, 
nor sustain any office in the Commonwealth. Last election," he adds, " Mr. 
Hatherley and myself were left off the bench, and myself discharged my captainship 
because I entertained some of the Quakers at my house, that I might thereby be the 
better acquainted with their principles. But the Quakers and myself cannot close in 
divers things, and so I signified to the Court; but / told them withal, that, as I was 
no Quaker-, I would be no PERSECUTOR."^ He then narrates how for two whole years 
he had been in opposition to the ruling powers on behalf of the same cause, and 
describes feelingly the sufferings of the Friends, which, he says, " saddened the 
hearts of the precious saints of God." 

James Bowden, in his " History of the Friends in America," bears testimony to 
the noble conduct of Cudworth and Hatherley, particularly in reference to their 
protecting three members of the Society, — William Brand, John Copland and Sarah 
Gibbons. Hatherly, as a magistrate, furnished them with a free pass to protect 
them on their way. 

My task is accomplished. I have shown as well as I knew how, and so far as 
time has permitted, that the Pilgrim Fathers, and their precursors in England, Hol- 
land, and at Plymouth, were Separatists, and had no connection with the Puritans, 
who subsequently settled in New England, at Salem and Boston in Massachusetts ; 
that the principles and practice of the two parties, confounded by some careless 
writers, differed essentially ; the Separatists ever contended for freedom of conscience, 
and separation from the powers of the State, while the Puritans remained in con- 
nection and communion with the State Church, and held both in England and New 
England that the State should be authoritative in matters of religion. Hence the 
anti-Christian and intolerant acts of the Puritan colony to the Separatists, Ralph 
Smyth, Roger Williams, Isaac Robinson, John Cudworth, and Timothy Hatherley. 
Hence also, on the arrival of the Friends, the cruel laws for whipping, banishing, 
and executing, for matters of religious faith and practice. I have shown that the 
Separatist colony of Plymouth had no share in this intolerant conduct during the 
lives of the Pilgrim Fathers ; and moreover, that they acted kindly, and received 
into their church both Smyth and Roger Williams when forbidden to worship freely 
elsewhere ; and that, after the death of the Pilgrim Fathers, some of their sons and 

1 "Hi^story of Scituate," p. 246. 



101 

successors, acting up to their principles, shielded the Friends, and refused to be 
parties to the persecuting laws then enacted. This last point I was not pledged to 
support by proof ; but I felt it due to the noble men of whom I have been speaking 
to show that they left some noble successors behind them. 

It may interest you to know that two eminent historians recently deceased virtu- 
ally admitted the truth of that which I have to-night affirmed. I refer to Lord 
Macaulay and Earl Stanhope (Lord Mahon), who, as commissioners for decorating 
historically the House of Lords, were appealed to respecting an erroneous inscription 
placed under Mr. Cope's painting of the Pilgrim Fathers landing in New England. 
The inscription stood, "Departure of a Puritan Family for New England ;" but 
after listening to the proofs submitted, and hearing Mr. Cope, who stated that he 
had taken his ideas from Bradford's "Journal," the commissioners ordered the terms 
''Puritan Family" to be removed, as unjust to the memory of the parties concerned, 
and substituted the words " Pilgrim Fathers." 

It may be objected, "This is merely a question of names, dates, and localities ; 
that, if the Pilgrim Fathers did not persecute, the Puritan colony of Massachusetts 
did. ' It is, however, a question of graver importance than this, — even of truth, 
justice, and principle. It is due to truth itself, that truth should be spoken, if ascer- 
tainable, upon every subject. It is due to the parties concerned, that justice should 
be done to their memories ; it is just, moreover, to their ecclesiastical successors to 
this day, and to the end of time. It is due to the high and saci-ed principles 
involved, that they should be rightly stated ; for ourselves, our children, and our 
children's children, will either learn or unlearn right principles, as they are placed 
truly before them, or withheld from their observation. It is due also upon the com- 
mon ground of justice from man to man. History which confounds right and 
wrong, the persecutor with the persecuted, is not only unjust, but worthless. History 
so written would confound the slave-holder with the enslaved ; indeed, would treat 
as one and the same the rabble of priests, scribes, and soldiers, which clamored for 
the crucifixion of our Lord, and the small weeping band of sympathizers who sur- 
rounded his cross. Religious history which does not accurately and justly discrimi- 
nate between not men only, but their PRINCIPLES, had better never have been written. 

This is a question of grave importance to you, my friends, who listen to me to- 
night. The struggle commenced at the Reformation is not yet over ; indeed, in some 
respects, it has hardly yet begun in some countries of Europe. The Society of 
Friends, in common with all who virtually hold Separatist views, are awakening to 
the fact that those great religious questions opened in the Tudor and Stuart period 
are reserved for final settlement in our day. America — thanks to the Separatists and 
Friends — has led the van, and Europe must soon follow ; but if our ecclesiastical 
trumpets give forth uncertain, confused, and conflicting sounds, who shall prepare 
himself for the struggle? " Europe," says the late Abbott Lawrence, United States 
ambassador to this country, — "Europe has begun to study the principles of the Pil- 
grim Fathers." Well, but what -were those principles? This is //^i? question. Were 
they the principles of a church claiming to be dominant and exclusive, and to hold 
authority over the minds and consciences of men, placing earthly rulers on the throne 
of spiritual supremacy ? Or were they the principles of churches which know no 
king but Christ, no law but his word, no teaching but that word as it shall be applied 
to each man's conscience individually by the influence of the Holy Spirit ; churches 
which repudiate human authority, however august, whether of kings, councils, or 
parliaments ; churches which hold, that, while the most devoted loyalty is due to 
civil rulers, loyalty to Christ demands that he should be lord of conscience ; churches 



10? 

which, in short, " render unto Cassar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God 
the things which are God's"? 

Are not these two systems sufficiently distinct to render justice to their professors 
and founders an act of fairness and Christian duty? If they be not sufficiently dis- 
tinctive to render such justice incumbent upon all of us Separatists of the present 
day (by whatever name we be termed), then it follows, as a necessary consequence, 
that we are not justified in our separation from the churches established in this or 
any other land by the authority of the law. 

It may be remarked, that the persecution of Roger Williams at Salem occurred 
previous to his adoption of the peculiar tenets of the Baptists. It had no reference, 
therefore, to the sentiments of that denomination, and in itself furnishes no ground 
for the charge that the Puritans persecuted the Baptists. 



PROCEEDINGS 



SEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING 

AND 

SEVENTH ANNUAL DINNER 

OF 

THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY 

IN THE CITY OF BROOKLYN. 



OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, COUNCIL, MEMBERS, 
STANDING COMMITTEES, 

AND 

BY-LAWS OF THE SOCIETY. 



BROOKLYN. 

1887. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE. 

Objects of the Society, .......... 3 

Terms of Membership, .......... 3 

Officers, ............ 4 

Directors, ............. 5 

Council, ............. 5 

Standing Committees, . . ........ 6 

Report of Seventh Annual Meeting, 7 

Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Dinner, . . . . . -13 

Bill of Fare, if> 

Address of President John Winslow, 17 

Gen'l W. T. Sherman, 22 

Hon. Joseph H. Choate, 26 

" Hon. Edward L. Pierce, 33 

" Hon. Noah Davis, .....■••• 39 

Rev. John R. Paxton, D.D 44 

" Hon. Granville P. Hawes, 49 

" Wm. Sullivan, Esq., 57 

Certificate of Incorporation, 59 

By-Laws ^3 

Honorary Members, ^9 

Life Members, '^9 

Annual Members, 'O 

Meetings of Society, 75 

Form of Bequest, .....•••••• 75 



OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY. 



The New England Society in the City of Brooklyn is incorporated and 
organized to commemorate the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers ; to encourage 
the study of New England History ; to establish a library, and to promote 
charity, good fellowship and social intercourse among its members. 



TERMS OF MEMBERSHIP. 



Admission Fee, ..... $10.00 

Annual Dues, ...... 5-oo 

Life Membership, besides Admission Fee. . . 50.00 

Payable at election, except A)iniial Dues, itdiich are payable in January of each year. 

Any member of the Society in good standing may become a Life Member 
on paying to the Treasurer at one time the sum of fifty dollars ; and thereafter 
such member shall be exempt from further payment of dues. 

Any male person of good moral character, who is a native or descendant 
of a native of any of the New England States, and who is eighteen years old 
or more, is eligible. 

If in the judgment of the Board of Directors, they are in need of it, the 
widow or children of any deceased member shall receive from the funds of the 
Society, a sum equal to five times the amount such deceased member has paid 
to the Society. 

The friends of a deceased member are requested to give the Historiog- 
rapher early information of the time and place of his birth and death, with brief 
incidents of his life, for publication in our annual report. Members who change 
their address should give the Secretary early notice. 

Jt^^It is desirable to have all worthy gentlemen of New England descent 
residing in Brooklyn, become members of the Society. Members are requested 
to send application of their friends for membership to the Secretary. 
Address, 

THOMAS S. MOORE, Recording Secretary, 

102 Broadway, New York. 



OFFICERS. 
1887. 



President: 
JOHN WINSLOW. 



First Vice-President: Second Vice-President: 

CALVIN E. PRATT. BENJ. F. TRACY. 



Treasurer: 
CHARLES N. MANCHESTER. 



Recording Secretary: Corresponding Secretary: 

THOMAS S. MOORE. WILLIAM H. WILLIAMS. 



HistoriogTapJi er: 
PAUL L. FORD. 



Librarian: 
CHARLES E. WEST, LL.D. 



DIRECTORS. 



For One Year: 
Benjamin D. Silliman. Hiram W. Hunt. 

George H. Fisher. William H. Williams. 

Henry E. Pierrepont. 

For Two Years: 
William H. Lyon. Albert E. Lamb. 

William B. Kendall. Stewart L Woodford. 

J. S. Case. 

For Three Years: 
Calvin E. Pratt. Ransom H. Thomas. 

John Winslow. Chas. N. Manchester. 

Joseph F. Knapp. 

For Four Years: 
Benjamin F. Tracy. A. S. Barnes. 

Henry W. Slocum. George B. Abbott. 

Nelson G. Carman, Jr. 



COUNCIL 



A. A. Low. 
A. M. White. 
S. B. Chittenden. 
A. F. Cross. 
Robert D. Benedict. 
Henry Coffin. 
Charles Pratt. 
C. L. Benedict. 
Thomas H. Rodman. 
Augustus Storrs. 



Arthur Mathewson. 
d. l. northrup. 
W. H. Nichols. 
Francis L. Hine. 
H. W. Maxwell. 
Seth Low. 
Isaac H. Gary. 
H. H. Wheeler. 
W. A. White. 
Darwin R. James. 



J. R. Cowing. 
A. C. Barnes. 
John Claflin. 
M. W. Robinson. 
J. S. T. Stranahan. 
Williard Bartlett. 
L. S. Burnham. 
Henry Earl. 
Jasper W. Gilbert. 
M. N. Packard. 



STANDING COMMITTEES. 



Finance: 
William H. Lyon, Geo. H. Fisher, 

Albert E. Lamb. 



Charity: 
Benjamin F. Tracy, Henry W. Slocum, 

J. F. Knapp. 



Invitations: 
Benjaman D. Silliman, John Winslow, 

Stewart L. Woodford. 



Annual Dinner: 
Hiram W. Hunt, Chas. N. Manchester, 

Ransom H. Thomas. 



Publications: 
Nelson G. Carman, Jr. William H. Williams. 

J. S. Case. 



Annual Receptions: 
President and Vice-Presidents. 



SEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING, 



The Seventh Annual Meeting of the New England Society 
in the City of Brooklyn, was held in the Director's Room of 
the Art Association Building, on Wednesday Evening, Decem- 
ber I, 1886. 

Mr. John Winslow, the President of the Society, called 
the meeting to order, and acted as Chairman. 

The minutes of the Sixth Annual Meeting, held December 
2, 1885, were read and approved. 

Mr. William B. Kendall, Treasurer of the Society, 
presented his Annual Report, showing a balance on hand of 
$13,239.95, deposited in the following institutions: 

South Brooklyn Savings Institution $3,046.00 

Brooklyn Savings Bank 3,045.00 

Dime Savings Bank 3,045.00 

Williamburgh Savings Bank 3,060.00 

Brooklyn Trust Co 1,043.95 

$13,239.95 

which was on motion approved, and ordered to be placed on 
file. There was appended to the Treasurer's Report, a certifi- 
cate signed by the Finance Committee, that the same had 
been examined and found to be correct. 

The President read his Annual Report, whfch was as 

follows : 

THE ANNUAL REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT. 

In submitting the report required by the By-Laws, I have 
the pleasure to state that the Society is prosperous both in its 
membership and finances. 

The declared purposes of the Society are to encourage the 



study of New England history, to establish a Hbrary, to pro- 
mote charity, good fellowship, and social intercourse among 
its members, and to commemorate the landing of the Pilgrim 
Fathers. 

These objects have been kept in view since the organiza- 
tion of the Society. 

That the success of the last Annual Dinner, both as to the 
quality of the dinner, and the brilliancy and high character of 
the speakers was appreciated, is seen in the fact that there has 
not been since the organization of the Society, so many appli- 
cations for tickets to the next dinner as now. 

The Society has sought to make this Annual Festival a 
notable event in Brooklyn, and its success in that respect is 
generally recognized. 

The indications are that the next Annual Dinner will be 
more largely attended than any former one. The high stand- 
ard that the Society has thus far maintained for these annual 
occasions will be firmly upheld. 

It is provided by Article 24 of the By-Laws, that if in the 
judgment of the Directors, they are in need of it, the widow 
or children of any deceased member shall receive from the 
funds of the Society, a sum equal to five times the amount 
.such deceased member has paid to the Society. 

There have been several occasions when help in this man- 
ner has been given under the direction of the Committee on 
Charities. 

The Report of the Secretary shows a recent increase of 
anembership, the total of which is now four hundred and 
-fifty. 

The report of the Treasurer shows that there is in the treas- 
ury at this date, the sum of $13,239.95, most of this sum is 
deposited in the four leading Savings Banks in the City of 
Brooklyn. 

The Historiographer's Report shows that four members of 
the Society have died in the past year. They are : 



Winchester Britton, who was born at North Adams, Berkshire 
County, Mass., April 9th, 1826, where he lived with his parents till his tenth 
year, when he went to the home of his grandfather in Troy, N. Y. In 1847, he 
entered Union College, but his health breaking he became a law student in the 
office of John Van Buren, till it was restored, when he resumed his college 
course, but was again compelled to leave through ill health. 

In 1848, he went to California, where he had a successful career, but 
eventually lost the fortune he had acquired, and for a short time returned East. 
On his revisiting California he became interested in politics, but soon re- 
turned East again, where, after completing his college course, he began the 
practice of the law in New York. In 1870, he removed his practice to this city, 



and two years later was elected District Attorney, and was re-elected the next 
term. 

Mr. Britton was twice married, first in 1853, to a daughter of William W. 
Parker, of Albany, by whom he had one son, who survived his mother but a few 
days; and again to the sister of his wife, Caroline A. Parker, by whom he had 
eleven children, all of whom survived him. 

He died February 13, 1886, in the sixtieth year of his age. 



Jeremiah P. Robinson, son of George C. and Mary Niles (Potter) Rob- 
inson, was born August 18, 1819, in South Kingston, R. I., where he lived 
with his grandfather till his twelfth year, and then entered the grocery store of 
his uncle in Newport, with whom he remained for two years, at the end of that 
time returning to South Kingston, where he worked on a farm till 1836, 
when he came to New York and secured employment in the firm of E. P. and 
A. Woodruff, dealers in salt fish and provisions, of which firm in five years 
he was admitted a partner, and on the retirement of Mr. Woodruff took the 
name of J. P. and G. C. Robinson, Mr. Robinson having taken a younger 
brother into the firm. 

In 1843, Mr. Robinson moved to Brooklyn and became interested in the 
water front of this city, building wharves and warehouses on property he pur- 
chased, and with Mr. William Beard he planned the Erie Basin. For a period 
he was president of the Brooklyn Bridge, and for many years one of the 
Trustees. He married Elizabeth DeWitt, of Cranberry, N. J., and had five 
children, four of whom survived him. 

Mr. Robinson died August 26, 1886, in the sixty-eighth year of his age. 



Henry Sanger, the third son of Zedekiah and Sarah (Kissam) Sanger, 
was born in New Hartford, Oneida County, New York, on the 20th of May, 
1823. He was the sixth lineal descendant from Richard Sanger, of Hingham, 
Mass., who came to this country between 1634 and 1636, and who was the an- 
cestor of a family of note in the Colonial and Revolutionary periods. 

Mr. Sanger was prepared for college, but, preferring a business career, 
came to New York in 1843, where he secured a situation as clerk in the fancy 
goods house of William H. Gary & Co., and in three years became a partner in 
the firm, which was successively Gary, Howard & Sanger, and (on the death of 
Mr. Gary) Howard, Sanger & Co. On the destruction of their store by fire, 
in 1879, Mr. Sanger ceased all active connection with the business, though re- 
taining an interest for several years. 

In 1852, Mr. Sanger married Mary E. Requa, of Albany, and shortly 
after removed to Brooklyn, residing first on Pierrepont Street and later on 
Montague Terrace. He took a prominent lead in the affairs of this city, was 
President of the Academy of Music, an active member of the Art Association, 
the Brooklyn Library, the Packer Collegiate Institute, Grace Church and 
Greenwood Cemetery, and was a leader in many charitable institutions. 

Mr. Sanger had five children, two of whom died in infancy. His widow 
and three children (one son and two daughters) survive him. 

He died March 15, 1886, in the sixty-third year of his age. 



10 

Charles Dennis, a life member of this Society, and Vice-President of the 
Atlantic Mutual Insurance Company, died at his home, in Montague Street, 
Brooklyn, June 15, 1886, in the sixty-sixth year of his age. 

Mr. Dennis was born in New London, Conn., on January 26, 1821, and 
there he received his early education. At the age of sixteen he came to New 
York, and secured employment as clerk in the dry goods house of C. H. Rus- 
sell & Co. Finding the confinement of that occupation irksome to his vigorous 
energetic nature, hegaveup that employment and entered the shipping house of 
E.D. Hurlburt & Co., as a clerk. While he was thus engaged, Commodore String- 
ham, of the United States Navy, took a fancy to him and engaged him as his 
clerk, and in that capacity he made a cruise around the world, during which he 
gained much information that proved of great value to him in his after life as a 
marine underwriter. After his voyage with Commodore Stringham he accepted 
employment in the firm of Goodhue & Co. In 1850 he resigned his position in 
that house to enter the employ of the Atlantic Mutual Insurance Company as an 
entry clerk. He continued in the service of this company the remainder of his 
life. In June, 1854, he was promoted to the position of assistant underwriter, 
and in February, 1855, to be Second Vice-President of the company. In Janu- 
ary, thirty years ago, he was made Vice-President of the company. Mr. Den- 
nis's early training especially fitted him to be a successful marine underwriter, 
and in that business he was a noted adept. One of his associates in the Atlantic 
Mutual Insurance Company said there was scarcely a man in the street who 
had taken so many risks. 

Mr. Dennis was a member of the Union League Club during the war. 
He was a fine penman, and it was partly on that account that Commodore 
Stringham took such a fancy to him . He wrote with ease and fluency, and 
his letters were models of brevity and clearness. He was a close reader, and 
unusually well informed on all matters connected with his business and kindred 
subjects. He was a very energetic man and he believed in vigorous methods of 
dealing with any difficulty in business or otherwise, that presented itself. 

He was large hearted, generous, and genial, fond of his home and family, 
and his friendships were of the sturdiest and most faithful kind. Mr. Dennis 
was married twice, the first time in 1843, and the second in 1S80. His second 
wife was a Miss Cholwell, who, with two sons and three daughters, by his first 
wife, all married, survive him. 



To this list must be added the name of Chester A. Arthur, late Presi- 
dent of the United States, and who was one of our honorary members. His 
recent death has brought out the history of his most useful and honorable life 
so fully in the public press, that it is not necessary to recall it now. We all 
remember with pleasure and gratitude the noble and splendid speech he made 
at our annual dinner three years ago. 

The record made by Chester A. Arthur as President will compare well 
with that of the best of his predecessors. 



On motion this report was accepted, and ordered to be 



II 

spread upon the minutes, and to be puplished in the annual 
report. 

The terms of Messrs. Benjamin F. Tracy, Henry W. 
Slocum, A. S. Barnes, George B. Abbott, and Nelson G. Car- 
man, Jr., as Directors, having expired, the Society proceeded 
to elect by ballot five directors, to hold office for four years, 
Messrs. Benjamin F. Tracy, Henry W. Slocum, A. S. Barnes, 
George B. Abbott, and Nelson G. Carman, Jr., were elected, 
and their election duly declared by the chairman. 



The meeting then adjourned. 



THOMAS S. MOORE, 

Recording Secretary. 



PROCEEDINGS AND SPEECHES 

AT THE 

SEVENTH ANNUAL DINNER. 

Tuesday, December 21, 1886, 

ht commemoration of the Two Hundred and Sixty-sixth Anni- 
versary of the Landing of the Pilgrims. 



The Seventh Annual Dinner of the New England Society, 
in the City of Brooklyn, was held in the Assembly Rooms of 
the Academy of Music, and in the Art Room adjoining, on 
Tuesday evening, December 21, 1886. 

The reception was held in the Art Room, and at six 
o'clock the dinner was served. 

Three hundred and forty gentlemen were seated at the 
tables. 

The President, Hon. John Winslow, presided, behind 
him hung the new banner of the Society. This banner is 
made from specially imported blue silk, and is of large pro- 
portions. The border is of white and red silk, and the fringes^ 
cords and tassels, of gold colored silk. The lettering is illu- 
minated in gold colors, as follows : " The New England Society 
of the City of Brooklyn, Incorporated 1880." In the centre is 
emblazoned in gold the seal of the Society, which contains a 
design of the ship " Mayflower." Below the seal is a painting 
of the Rock with date, 1620, commemorative of the landing: 
of the Pilgrim Fathers. The staff and cross-bar are of polished 
mahogany, surmounted with an eagle of gilded metal. 



14 

Upon his right sat Gen. W. T. Sherman, Gen. Henry 
W. Slocum, Hon. Noah Davis, Hon. Edward L. Pierce, 
Rev. Albert J. Lyman, Hon. Granville P. Hawes, Hon. 
John W. Hunter. 

On the left of the President sat Hon. Joseph H. Choate, 
Hon. B. D. Silliman, Rev. John R. Paxton, Hon. 
Stewart L. Woodford, Hon. D. D. Whitney, William 
Sullivan, Esq. 

The members of the Society were seated as follows : 

Table B.— William B. Kendall, W. W. Hewlett. Ripley Ropes, S. W. 
Boocock, Arthur R. Paine, N. H. Clement. J. T. Marean, William Berri, A. 
Ammerman, H. D. Hotchkiss, S. D. Morris, A. R. Jarrett, Chas. Heckman, 

E. W. Richardson, Leonard Moody, Paul C. Grening* Chas. I. De Baun, Geo. 
P. Merrill, A. E. Lamb, Charles S. Higgins, A. E. Whyland, David S. Bab- 
cock, J. A. Wernberg, D. A. Hulett, F. E. Taylor, Albert Douglas, Jr., Geo. 
A. Boynton, T. E. Pearsall, N. Townsend Thayer, David Barnett, Quincy A. 
Atvfood, J. P. Cranford, Jesse Johnson, Franklin Allen, J. F. Talmage, John 
N. Partridge. 

Table C. — Charles N. Manchester, Arthur Dean, Joel W. Hyde, Gustave 
A. Jahn, James E. Hayes, Walter K. Paye, Leonard Richardson, George C. 
White, Jr., George C. White, F. H. Lovell, Albert C. Woodruff, C. B. Daven- 
port, Andrew Jacobs, Henry Pratt, John L. How, Gustave A. Recknagel, Thos. 
R. Ball, William D. Wade, Nelson G. Carman, Jr., Caskie Harrison, Seelye 
Benedict. H. C. Du Val, Mark D. Wilbur, Henry C. Collins, F. Abbott Ingalls, 
Isaac H. Cary, Rev. Chas. F. Russell, D. M. Somers, Chas. N. Chadwick, 
Albert W. Newell, Silas Condict, H. H. Perrin, Chas. M. Clarke, Richard M. 
Johnson, George C. Bradley, H. B. Moore. 

Table D.— Hiram W. Hunt, Geo. W. Hunt, C. H. Wheeler, J A. Tweedy, 
William H. Buffum, W. S. Badger, George N.Wilcox, Henry Adams. Jr., Sam'l 
Richards, Schuyler Walden, Chas. F. Lawrence, S. S. Blood, H. H. Wheeler, 
James W. Ridgway. Aug. Van Wyck. Wm. Barre, Abram Lott, Wm. Hester, 
Geo. B. Abbott, Henry J. Cullen, Jr., Daniel G. Rollins, W. B. Davenport, 
Henry A. Moore, E. W. Bliss, E. Spicer, Francis L. Hine, Henry E. Ide, John 

F. Owings, M. N. Packard, J. Lester Keep, Henry Hentz, Almet F. Jenks, 
Landon Carter Gray, Willard Bartlett, Calvin E. Pratt, St. Clair McKelway. 

Table E. — James S. Case, Eugene L. Maxwell, Abraham Sanger, H. R. 
Heath, George A. Price, R. N. Denlson, John S. James, E. C. Kimball, Ira 
A. Kimball, George H. Staynor, Henry S. Ives, Elihu Dwight, James O. Mc- 
Dermott, James S. Stearns, James Brady, H. D. Brookman, G. S. Hutchinson, 
E. H. Kellogg, Charles A. Moore, George L. Pease, William C. DeWitt, 
Stephen Condit, H. W. Slocum, Jr., Albert S. Hoyt, Charles A. Hoyt, E. A. 
Seccomb, Charles P. Williams, E. A. Lewis, John G. Johnson, N. W. Josselyn, 
George H. Prentiss, Rodney C. Ward, H. A. Tucker, H. A. Tucker, Jr., D. C. 
McEwen. 



15 

Table F.— John B. Woodward, A. D. Wheelock, A. I. Ormsbee, H. Judd, 

C. W. House, Rev. Jno. Rhey Thompson, Benjamin Estes, George W. Brush, 
William G. Creamer, Edwin Atkins, Philander Shaw, J. M. Leavitt, S. E. 
Howard. S. V. Lowell, Henry Coffin, William H. Taylor, J. N. Kalley, E. B. 
Litchfield, R. W. Ropes, Amory T. Skerry, Amos Robbins, S. S. Guy, James 
S. Bailey, William Coit, Charles H. Parsons, William T. Cross, Alfred F. 
Cross, Arthur B. Hart, J. R. Cowing, L A. Whitman, J. A. Cowing, Noah R. 
Hart, H. W. Cowing, Charles A. Denny, Henry C. Hulbert. 

Table G. — Henry E. Pierrepont, Jasper W. Gilbert, Rev. W. A. Snively, D. 
D., J. Spencer Turner, J.W. Frothingham, Julian T. Davies, Thomas S. Moore, 
W. A. White, E. H. Litchfield, H. E. Pierrepoint, Jr., James R. Taylor, C. J. 
Lowrey, A. Van Sinderen, Henry Sheldon, Charles Pratt, C. M. Pratt, F. B. 
Pratt, Edwin Packard, J. S. T. Stranahan, Spencer Trask, Seth Low, S. V. 
White, Frederick Cromwell, Alexander E. Orr, Alfred T. White, W. A. Pierre- 
pont, B. T. Frothingham, Henry K. Sheldon, Frederick A. Ward, Bryan H. 
Smith, W. B. Leonard, W. T. Hatch, F. L. Babbett, W. O. Pratt, W. B. 
Mossman. 

Table H. — B. F. Tracy, Geo. G. Reynolds, Stewart L. Woodford, E. E. 
Eames, R. S. Roberts, Wm. H. Wallace, Wm. H. Nichols, Geo. F. Gregory, 
James H. Thorpe, Thos. S. Thorpe, Robert H. Thompson, D. P. Templeton, 

D. L. Proudfit, Henry E. Pratt, Chas. A. Pratt, C. S. Van Wagoner, George J. 
Laighton, M. W. Robinson, Wm. H. Williams, R. D. Benedict, Augustus 
Storrs, O. A. Gager, James B. Dewson, Henry Emerson, John E. Dwight, H. 

D. Norris, Wm. W. Wickes, Wm. W. Rossiter, T. L. Woodruff, Reuben 
Leland, James E. Dean, Wm. C. Wallace, David A. Boody, Wm. H. Bennett, 
C. S. Brainerd. A. J. Perry. 

Table L — Wm. H. Lyon, Geo. Follett, James H. Pratt, Wm. H. Lyon, Jr, 
Marvin T. Lyon, Ethan Allen Doty, John P. Adams, George M. Nichols, 
Rufus L. Scott, John A. Quintard, O. T. Jennings, A. G. Jennings, James P. 
Wallace, Alva Lewis, Cyrus W. Field. Jr., M. S. Beach, Geo. D. Mackay, H. 
B. Barnes, A. S. Barnes, A. C. Barnes, E. M. Barnes, W. D. Barnes, John T. 
Sherman, Henry Elliott, John E. Jacobs, Edward E. Hoyt, E. F. Beadle, Nel- 
son J. Gates, William Adams, L. W. Manchester, Ezra D. Barker, John W. 
Sedgwick, E. G. Webster, C. R. Duxbury, A. W. Follett, J. B. Elliott. 

Table J. — Joseph F. Knapp, Bernard Peters, L. M. Fiske, Alonzo Slote, 

E. G. Blackford, Lowell M. Palmer, James Applegate, R. M. Gray, E. Clif- 
ford Wadsworth, Daniel T. Wilson, Chas. H. Russell, Sherlock Austin, Wm. H. 
Gaylor, A. C. Hockmeyer, Timothy Perry, Daniel L. Northup, George R. Con- 
ner, Ambrose Snow, George H. Fisher, Rev. Newland Maynard, Wm. C. 
Bryant, John H. Shults, John H. Schumann, William B. Hurd, Jr., Charles F. 
Tonjes, Bernard Gallagher, George C. Barclay, H. Clay Swain, A. H. Creagh, 
J. Culbert Palmer, A. W. Higgins, Ed. C. Wallace, Warren E. Smith, I. M. 
Bonn, E. R. Kennedy, Silas B. Dutcher. 







i6 










BILL OF FARE. 










Oysters. 








Broth Chate 


Soups. 

;laine. 

Side Dishes. 


Green 


Turtle. 




Olives. 


Radishes. 
Timbales, Queen's style. 




Celery. 


Sal 


mon, Joinville. 


Fish. 




Fried Smelts. 



Potatoes HoUandaise. 

Removes. 

Filet of Beef, Piemontaise fashion. 

Cauliflower Damezac 

Entrees. 

Young Turkeys, Toulousaine. Sweetbread Grammoni. 

French Peas. String Beans. 

Terrapin, Baltimore style. 

Punch Venetian. 

Game. 

Canvas-back. Quails. 

Cold. 

Terrine of Goose Liver, with Truffles. 

S.\LAD. 

Sweets and Confectionery. 

Plum Pudding, Sabayon 
Wafers, Chantilly. Fruit Jelly. Fancy Ice Creams. 

Pyramids. Assorted Cake. 

Coffee. 

When the company had assembled at the tables, Rev. 
Albert J. Lyman, pronounced the following grace: 

Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, the God of our 
fathers, whose way Thou didst guide, and whose wants Thou 
didst satisfy, we acknowledge Thy bounty and crave Thy 
blessing. We thank Thee for the histories we are assembled 
to remember. We thank Thee for the ample store provided 
in our land, — a land by Thy Providence opened, and in Thy 
wisdom appointed, to the service among men of a just liberty 
and a reasonable faith. We acknowledge Thy goodness in 
maintaining for us, undecayed, the fruit of former toils, — in 
the peace and the power which Thou hast vouchsafed unto 
our people, so that strength and hope have come to the hearts 
of Thy true servants throughout all the world. Grant us now, 
therefore, we beseech Thee, that in reverence and gratitude, 
we may partake of Thy gifts, and that, both now and always, 
we may in all things continually honor Thy truth and Thy 
Name, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 



17 

ADDRESS OF HON. JOHN WINSLOW, THE PRESI- 
DENT OF THE SOCIETY. 

Gentlemen of the Neiv England Society in the City of Boooklyn^ 
Guests and Friends : 

It is cause for congratulation that our Society continues 
to prosper. We have four hundred and fifty members, and 
$13,239 in the treasury. 

At this, our seventh annual dinner, the attendance is larger 
than at any former one. There are three hundred and forty 
gentlemen present, and there would be many more if space 
and tickets could be had. We are not strong in numbers 
only. What occasion brings together such a body of gentle- 
men as we see here to-night? If the Pilgrim Fathers are 
looking down on this brilliant scene, they must feel the flush 
of honest paternal pride. [Applause.^ 

In this connection it is proper to recognize that this Society 
has had a good, influential, steadfast and generous helper from 
its beginning, in our excellent friend, now our President 
Emeritus, Mr. Silliman. [^General applause, zvitJi cheering, the 
company rising; Mr. Silliman bowed Jiis ackno%vlcdgment7\ That 
he now receives your assurances of high respect and warm 
regard is, we trust, pleasing to him, as we know it is appro- 
priate to the occasion. {Renewed applause^ 

That we may the better see and understand the life of the 
Pilgrims, let us consider some of the blessings of our advanc- 
ing civilization, of which they were deprived, and some of the 
evils they escaped. 

For instance, though they were at times, blown up by the 
Indians and by other enemies, both sides of the Atlantic, the 
Pilgrim Fathers were never blown up by a steamboat or 
steamship, and never saw one. {Laughter.'] They never saw 
or heard a rattling, thundering locomotive, and never enjoyed 
a railroad collision. {Laughter.'] 

Nobody in their time could calculate the next eclipse of 
the sun. Galileo, though a scientific contemporary, was not 
in public favor, and the view continued to prevail that " the 
sun do move." Ether had not been discovered to soothe 
their wounds and pains. What a pity that photography was 



i8 

not known to them, that we might adorn these walls with 
their good faces. [^Applause.'] Though they enjoyed the 
Geneva and King James version of the Bible, the revised ver- 
sion came too late to bless them. No Henry George vexed 
or fooled them with new born land problems. [Applat{se.'] 
The earth and sea were theirs, or at least as much of them as 
they cared to have or contend with. They never heard the 
click of the telegraph, nor of the Western Union Telegraph 
Company. The only western union that interested them was a 
union of hearts and hands in a common cause in this western 
world, on the shores of Plymouth. [Applause.'] 

The only instance of watering stock that distressed them 
was when they forded the waters of Cape Cod and Plymouth 
Bay, in the hard, cold winter, looking for a site for settlement. 
As usual with stock watering operations, it did not bring health 
and happiness to all concerned. [Laughter.'] They never 
heard of the telephone. Just imagine, if you can, a Pilgrim 
Father at the tube of a telephone crying, "Hello! hello!" 
[Loud Laughter.] They doubtless believed that hell was a 
low place, but they were not in the habit of expressing 
their views on that subject in that way. They never en- 
joyed an earthquake. The only ciuake that ever troubled 
them and made them sorrowful was the shake up between 
the Boston Puritans and the Boston Quakers. They never 
conceived the idea of an Ocean Cable, and if one had been 
produced in their day, they would have doubtless believed it 
was the devil himself putting his tail to some infernal use 
in the deep sea. [Lajighter.] Neither had they the slightest 
conception of one of our modern inventions in the science 
of government and home rule — I mean a New York Alder- 
man. [Loud Laughter.] It is a solemn thought, what would 
have become of the Pilgrim Fathers had they fallen into 
the hands of a body like the New York Aldermen ? It is 
my private opinion the Pilgrims would have triumphed by 
freezing them out and by thumping their wicked heads very 
hard on Plymouth Rock. [Applause.] If an Anarchist of 
the Chicago type had appeared among them, striving to over- 
throw the Mayflower compact, for civil government, the Pil- 
grims would, in the first place, have made diligent search for 
his brains, and, if discovered, would, in the second place, have 



19 

left them scattered near the aforesaid Rock. \Loud applause^ 
For four years the Pilgrims had neither butter nor milk — not 
even watered milk. No Pilgrim Father owned a cow until March 
1624. Neither did they have any oleomargarine. [^Laughter.'] 
This article of prime necessity was not discovered in time to 
fill the gap, from the day of the landing until the cattle 
arrived. With oleo to nourish them, it might have become 
a leading issue when they elected a Governor, as it seems to 
have become, in some measure, in this State, on the question 
of electing a United States Senator. {^Loiid Laughter.'] 

The Pilgrims had no navy. No naval questions of "struc- 
tural weakness," beset them, though the poor little Mayflower 
was, it is said, overstrained ; but they had a powerful army, 
consisting of Captain Standish and sixteen men armed with 
" match locks." Garfield said, " President Mark Hopkins and a 
barn would make a university." Rampant Indians found that 
Captain Standish and his sixteen made an invincible army. 
[^Applause.] 

Last, but not least, the Pilgrim Fathers were not acquainted 
with Delmonico. {Laughter.] How in the world they got along 
without him is more than this Society, at this moment, com- 
prehends. {Merriment.] Perhaps they did not see the im- 
portance of their landing, as we now see it, and so the event 
was not celebrated until 1769. We may as well admit that 
Delmonico helps us see it in its true light, proportions and 
magnitude. {Laughter.] 

But, notwithstanding these deprivations, the good Pilgrims 
brought with them and adopted the Common Law of Eng- 
land, and were greatly blessed with an abiding faith in Divine 
truth, and with a firm belief in, and love for, civil and religious 
freedom. They believed in and upheld Liberty regulated by 
Law. {General applause.] 

We are here, therefore, to commemorate their noble prin- 
ciples and high achievements. They believed in Church Life, 
in civil government and education. In planting the seeds of 
Harvard University as early as 1636, and Yale in 1700, the 
Fathers showed the great care they had for education. This 
early planting at Cambridge, by John Harvard, aided by the 
general Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, has now 
become the large and flourishing tree we see it to be, standing 



20 

well among the leading universities of the world. \^Applausc.~\ 
Yale, though younger, stands among the best, and is showing 
vigorous growth. {Applause?^ But it is wonderful how near 
such a beacon light of intelligence the shades of darkness 
may prevail. 

Here was Harvard planted in a wilderness. In its early 
time it had two Indian students from the woods. Mr. Lowell 
said the other day in his elegant discourse at fair Harvard, 
where was witnessed a most impressive literary spectacle, that 
the " College succeeded in keeping but one of these wild 
creatures long enough to make a graduate of him, and he 
thereupon vanished into the merciful shadow of the past." In 
other words, they both took to the woods. {Laughter?^ Years 
ago, Holmes referring .to this creature from the wild forest, 
wrote : 

" And who was on the catalogue 

When college was begun ? 
Two nephews of the President, 

And the professor's son; 
They turned a ' little Injun ' by, 

As brown as any bun; 
Lord, how the seniors knocked about 

The freshman class of one." 

It was, doubtless such scenes as this that stirred the pious 
mind of the famous Indian missionary, John Elliott. {Laugh- 
ter:] 

A freshman class of one ! As the army that marched to 
the sea would be likely to look upon an army such as was led 
by Captain Miles Standish, so the throngs that now fill the 
classes of Yale and Harvard, and similar institutions, may look 
back at the " The two nephews of the President and the pro- 
fessor's son," also at the 'little Injun.' [Applause.'] 

While these powerful contrasts denote our great progress, 
let us remember that the beginnings were inspired by a spirit 
that made this progress possible. The sense of duty and the 
military ardor that filled the soul of Standish and other heroes 
in the early time, made it easier and surer for the country to 
have in the hour of its great need, a Sherman and a Grant. 
\General applause?^ 

But here is another illustration in Connecticut this time, of 



21 

how the shades of bad Hterature, if not of darkness, may pre- 
vail near another beacon light, Yaie University. The case is 
this : A man went to his grocer the other day in New Lon- 
don, not far from Yale University, and mixed up Yale's Eng- 
lish and the King's English in this manner: He said "he 
wanted an empty barrel of flour to make a hen-coop for his 
bulldog." 'iLaughte)\"\ 

Here we see again how, by the side of resplendant light, 
ignorance, if not barbarism, may prevail. We were told by 
the same poet at Harvard, on the occasion of its late magnifi- 
cent celebration, that so liberally does 

" Harvard's beacon shed its unspent rays," 
" A brighter radiance gilds the roofs of Yale." 

This being so, let us hope all things will be set right in due 
course, in New London and elsewhere. [^Laughter.'] 

It is true to-day, as the Pilgrims and the Puritans saw it 
was true in their day — that the warfare of knowledge against 
barbarism is eternal. The vigilance of our schools and col- 
leges and universities in this fight, gives us the comforting 
hope that our free institutions may be perpetuated ; that we 
may keep our " Liberty regulated by Law." {^General applause.'] 



You will now please rise in your places and drink to 
"THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES." 
(The toast was drank standing, followed by applause) 



{The President then resumed) — I am sure that the words I 
am about to read from this programme are in your minds and 
hearts already, — 

"A CORDIAL WELCOME TO GEN. SHERMAN." 

General Sherman is so well known to us all that I shall not in- 
dulge in a single word of eulogy ; but he tells a story of himself, 
in Volume 2 of his Memoirs, page 290, of which this occasion 
reminds me. He says that, as the army was marching along on 



22 

the road leading to Cheraw, during its great march to the Sea ; 
and after working its way up through the CaroUnas, and near the 
Peedee River, he was one morning riding along on his famous 
Lexington horse, a dancing, prancing, spirited steed, when he 
saw a colored man standing by the roadside, and asked him 
about the road to Cheraw. The colored patriot gave all the 
desired information, and the General went on. In a moment 
or two General Barry came up, and seeing the colored man 
standing there, asked him what he was doing there. " Why," 
said the colored man, " they tell me that Massa Sherman is 
coming along this way, and I am waiting to see him." " Why," 
said General Barry, " that is General Sherman that you were 
just talking with. See him down the road there ? " The col- 
ored man looked, and exclaimed, " De great God ! Look at 
dat horse ! " Now we are inclined to amend that a little, and 
say, " Good Heavens, look at that rider ! " [Laughter and loud 
applause?^ The General adds that the colored man walked 
along with him about a mile and seemed to think a good deal 
more of the horse than of the rider. Let me present the rider. 
{Vociferous applause, the company rising and giving " Three 
cheers and a tiger for old Tecuniseh.'"\ 

ADDRESS OF GENERAL WILLIAM T. SHERMAN. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen:—! thank the members of 
this most honorable body for the delicate manner in which you 
have called me to my feet. [Applausc?^^ I thank you, Mr. Presi- 
dent, for recalling some little reminiscences recorded by myself, 
which should teach me to be silent, — if our stories are to be 
quoted against ourselves. {Laughter?^ And I certainly compli- 
ment you this evening, friends of Brooklyn, compatriots, fellow- 
descendants from honored parents, upon this magnificent testi- 
monial to the virtues of your sires. {Applause?^, Two hundred 
and sixty-six years have passed since a little " band of weary 
wanderers " landed at Plymouth Rock and began that series of 
events Avhich has gone on, is still going on, and which, I trust, 
will go on to the end of time. "Honor thy father and thy mother 
that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy 
God giveth thee." Honoring the virtues of your ancestors, 
you add to the glory of our country and to its perpetuity. 



23 

\^Applansc.~\ And though you are not surrounded by the bare 
rocks and the cold waters of the sea which confronted the Pil- 
grims as they landed at Plymouth, you are none the less in 
your heart of hearts Puritans and Pilgrims in the progress of 
great events. You do well to honor your ancestors and their 
sturdy character and virtues. In like manner, let the Cavaliers 
of the South honor theirs ; let the sturdy Germans and Dutch- 
men, right here in New York, honor their ancestry. They have 
all come to unite in making the one common destiny in which 
your forefathers, it may be, were the chief pioneers. \Appla2isc^ 

It so happened that I, in boyhood, saw the little white emi- 
grant wagon wending its way to the far west when Indiana 
was the frontier. I remember the wagons going by the old 
National road to the Wabash, then a far distant land. Again, 
I have seen them start from the frontiers of Missouri to the 
plains of Colorado ; yea, I was in California when the first 
great emigration of our race came across the mountains, forty 
years ago. Eighty human beings, with bodies and souls like 
those of our ancestors, and like your own, with warm hearts 
beating, then as now, were caught by the cold blasts of the 
Sierra Nevada and were imprisoned in the snows, just forty 
years ago, and out of the eighty, thirty-eight perished ; and it 
is said that many of the survivors were kept alive by eating of 
the dead bodies of their comrades, and that some were killed 
in order to feed the living. They were men and women as 
good as we, bound upon the same general purpose to open up 
new lands and create a new civilization. In the spring of 
1847, ^ f^w succeeded in getting across the mountain to Sut- 
ter's Fort, then a solitary spot in the valley of the Sacramento, 
carrying the news, when brave men buckled on their snow- 
shoes, crossed the mountains, and brought the survivors in, 
where they were welcomed with the best fare the rescuers 
possessed. I was in California at the time, and saw some of 
the poor miserable wretches, and none of us had the heart to 
accuse them of having killed their fellows, in order that the 
few might survive. SJipplaiisc?\^ 

Still later, I saw the immigration of 1848 and 1849 of 
50,000 people, men, aged men, young and sturdy men, and 
even women and little children toddling along by the side of 
their ox-wagons. They came to California over the same 



24 

Sierra Nevada, and the same winter storms threatened them. 
It was not then, as it is now, necessary to advertise for sixty 
days in order to expend a few dollars of public money ; and 
the brave and gallant gentleman who commanded the troops 
in California, General Parsifer F. Smith, ordered the quarter- 
master, Captain Folsom, to lay aside $100,000 for the purpose 
of equipping three parties to cross the mountains, whom he 
ordered not to return westward until every emigrant had safely 
crossed to the Plains of the Sacramento. S^Applause^ Were the 
same thing to occur to-day, he would have to advertise for 
sixty days in the newspapers of the neighborhood, before he 
could spend a cent. {^Laughter and applause.'\ I had occasion 
recently to overhaul the papers of the ofificer who was en- 
trusted with this noble errand, worthy the virtue of your 
ancestors. Major D. H. Rucker, now a retired ofBcer in Wash- 
ington, and I found the list of names, to whom had been issued 
such items as forty pounds of bacon, thirty pounds of sugar 
and coffee, a bag of flour, etc., for his train. Some of those 
same men, thus rescued certainly from great suffering and, it 
may be, from death, by the hands of a gallant soldier whose 
name, very likely, is forgotten by most of you that sit by these 
tables to-night, are now useful, rich and influential citizens of 
the United States, and are held in high honor by their neigh- 
bors as " Pioneers" as " Forty-niners." \Loiid applmisc?^ 

Great deeds, my friends have been done since Plymouth 
Rock was first touched by the feet of your ancestors ; great 
deeds are now being done. The same civilization that they 
planted has formed States, whose soil has since been watered 
by the blood of as good, brave and gallant men as ever trod 
the earth. {^Applause.'] 

And I hope that in being the bearer of such a message to 
you, it will be understood that I do not detract one iota or parti- 
cle from the character of those noble men who first landed and 
organized out of nothing a society which grew to be a colony, 
and from a colony to a State, and from one State to the many, 
which compose this glorious Union, whose branches spread to 
the Pacific ocean on the West, to the Lakes on the North, and 
to Mexico on the South. They were your ancestors, and you 
to-day in Brooklyn are enjoying, in a great measure, the fruits. 
of their labor. [ApplaiiscJ] 



25 

I congratulate you upon living in this day, instead of two 
hundred and sixty-six years ago. I have no doubt that at 
this very moment trains of Pullman cars are speeding past 
Donner's Lake, where to the passengers are still pointed out 
the stumps of trees that were cut off twenty feet above 
the ground, where Donner's party perished in the deep snows 
of 1845. There is a great contrast between that day on the 
Sierra Nevada and the frigid winter which our forefathers 
endured on the coast of Massachusetts two hundred and 
sixty-six years ago, on the one hand, and this, as illus- 
trated by your magnificent banquet, on the other. Look at 
these walls and ceilings brilliant with flowers, evergreens and 
guady banners, look around you at the faces of your con- 
temporaries and see the lines of refinement, of cultivation and 
of wealth. God knows I wish you to enjoy all these blessings 
to the very limit of life, and may you also transmit the hardier 
virtues of your ancestors down to the latest generation. 

- Yes, my friends, you do well to honor the virtues of your 
ancestors. Forget their little foibles, but remember the seeds 
of independent thought and hardy endurance which they 
planted in that soil whose fruits are now enjoyed, not only in 
America, but by all freemen on the face of this earth. 

Again I thank you, and wherever two or three of the 
sons of sturdy old New England meet together, there will I be 
most happy to be as one of them, until I, too, am called to 
that rest toward which we all are hastening so fast. [General 
applause^ 



President Winslozu : — The next regular toast is 

"THE DAY WE CELEBRATE." 

I confess that I now have an embarrassing and delicate 
duty to perform. I am about to introduce a youthful and 
inexperienced public speaker. [Laughter.], We don't exactly 
know how he will get through. We do know that he can 
speak up very wqW for his dinner to a court and jury, but how 
he will speak after dinner, who can tell ? \_Langhter.'] What 



26 

he is going to talk about, I cannot guess, except that I heard a 
remark from him just now to the effect that he came over the 
East River Bridge to-night and was greatly impressed with its 
strength. Possibly he regards the fact that it brought him 
safely over, as the best evidence that it is strong. \_Laughtcr?^ 
At any rate, we are all very glad to see our friend, and I 
have great pleasure in presenting him to you, the Hon. Joseph 
H. Choate. {^Applause.'] 



ADDRESS OF HON. JOSEPH H. CHOATE. 

Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the Nezv England Society of 
Brooklyn : 

I observe that the next speaker after me, the Rev. Timothy 
Dwight, D.D., L.L.D., President of Yale University, who was 
assigned to speak to the toast, " The Schools and Colleges of 
New England," has failed to appear. I, accordingly, propose, 
as there is no natural limit to my remarks, to talk until -the next 
speaker but one after me, begins. [Laughter.'] And if you can 
tell how k)ng that will be, you will be better timekeeper than 
the great chronometer in the National Observatory at Wash- 
ington. There is time enough, too; there is no need for being 
in a hurry. 

The situation reminds me of another story of another 
darkey, related by General Sherman, in his ever memorable 
Memoirs. During the War, when he was making that great, 
historic march through Georgia, [Applause.'] General Sherman, 
the Miles Standish of our generation, [Cheering.] for we know 
that Miles Standish marched a triumphant army through all 
the country that there was in his day. [Laughter.] Well, in 
his triumphant progress, he came to Howell Cobb's plantation, 
and the Yankees whom he led, squatted and took possession 
for the night. A darkey, hearing that the great deliverer of 
America and of his race had come, and looking, with admira- 
tion upon his features, exclaimed : ' This nigger will have no 
sleep to-night ! ' "And so," the General continues in his charm- 
ing record, " when we marched on and on, and finally reached 
the Sea and there saw the Stars and Stripes waving over our 



27 

welcoming gunboats by the shore, I, too, remembered the 
exclamation of the old darkey, and repeated in the same fervid 
spirit, ' This nigger will have no sleep to-night,' " \CJicers and 
Imightcr.^ When I look around me upon this "sea of up- 
turned faces" and swollen forms, [^Laughter.'] I, too, believe 
that I can exclaim, on your behalf, as there is time enough, 
" These niggers will have no sleep to-night." [Laughter and 
cheers,'] 

What was that you said about the Bridge, Mr. President ? 
\Laughter?\ As I came with the six o'clock crowd to-night, 
on a three-cent fare, over the Brooklyn Bridge, that greatest 
triumph of modern art, I could not help asking myself the 
question, which can by and by only be answered in one way, 
" Why any longer two cities? Why ever two New England 
Societies?" That teeming tide of life that pours over the 
Bridge at every hour of the day, and demonstrates that each 
city is always in full possession of its sister, proves that the 
swift river that divides them is only the thread that binds their 
fortunes together. The cars that keep flying across it with 
the swiftness of steam, bearing the living streams of humanity 
across, are but the shuttles that are weaving these two great 
municipalities into one — one and inseparable, forever. {Ap- 
plauses^ We are ready for it on our side now. If you will 
give us your judges and your voters, we will give you our 
whole Board of Aldermen. [Great merriment^ If you will 
give us your property we will throw in our taxes, [Continued 
laughter.'] And on the principle that equality is equity, who 
shall deny that this will be a fair exchange ? Then what 
reason is there for the being of this separate New England 
Society ? Are we not all men and brethren ? and haven't I 
seen scores of these gentlemen before me, — the same Salem 
men, and Boston men, and New London men, and Worcester 
men hovering around the tables of the New York Delmonico's 
at our Pilgrim dinners? I know why you did it. It was not 
simply to vindicate the truth of history; it was not simply to 
set up the landmark of the 2ist, as the day of the landing 
instead of the 22d, but it was to give a practical demonstration 
of that good old maxim that as " he who makes two blades of 
grass to grow where only one grew before, is the greatest ben- 
efactor of his time ; " so he who makes two dinners to be eaten 



28 

in one day does more for the people of Brooklyn than anybody 
else. {Laughter and cheers.'] 

I have listened with delight to the opening remarks of 
your presiding officer, and I must say that never, until to-night, 
did I fully realize the matchless virtues of " Winslow's Sooth- 
ing Syrup." [Laughter.'] I have been reading about it in the 
advertisements all my life, and I have there observed that 
when an infant has overgorged his stomach, and has partaken 
too freely from the bottle, [Laughter.] this admirable com- 
pound soothes and softens the child. [Laughter.] But what a 
signal demonstration of the virtues here to-night, when a single 
dose, administered to three hundred and forty full-grown men, 
who have been eating and drinking solidly for two hours and 
a half, puts them, within ten minutes, in absolute good humor 
with themselves and with all mankind, so that they are ready 
to encounter, without a murmur, the perils of the tempest, the 
assaults of savages, and the dangers of famine that welcomed 
our Pilgrim fathers as they landed on the rock at Plymouth. 
[Laicghter.] I have always heard that it was an easy thing to 
bear the sufferings and distresses of people afar off, but when 
those are our own sires, who begat us eight and ten generations 
removed, why it is well to be fortified with such an admirable 
and charming compound. [Applause.] But, seriously, gentle- 
men, I must congratulate you upon the elevation of this gentle- 
man to the chair that he now occupies, and him upon the honor 
of holding it. Who would not rather be President of this body 
of men than be a member of either house of Congress or the 
Governor of the State of New York. [Applause] He is an 
instance of that doctrine of evolution, the survival of the fittest. 
I have been very much interested in heridity, a charming and 
fascinating study. One of the signal demonstrations of it is 
the cropping-out of the personal features and characteristics 
of a remote ancestor in his far-distant posterity. If you have 
read the annals of the Plymouth Colony, as you ought to have 
done, you have read that, in 1633, one Edward Winslow was 
chosen Governor of the Colony, in the place of Governor 
Bradford, who had served for many years, and who was then, 
by his own importunity, let off. He served his country faith- 
fully on missions to England. He was there taken by the 
government at home, and sent on a mission to which he gave 



29 

his valuable life. The poetical chronicler of that day says of 
him — mark the words, for you will recognize the resemblance; 

" Winslow, a man of chiefest trust, 
Whose life was sweet and conversation just, 
Whose parts and wisdom most men did excel, 
An honor to his place, as all can tell," 

\^ApplauseP\ 

Forty years afterwards there was another Governor Winslow 
chosen by the Plymouth Colony. A son of the first governor 
of the same name, who held the of^ce for seven years, during 
which time the great King Philip's War was brought to a suc- 
cessful close. When he died, the chronicler said of him, — and 
you will note the resemblance again, " He was a worthy and 
well-accomplished gentlemen ; deservedly beloved by the peo- 
ple, being a true friend of their religious liberties ; generous, 
facetious, affable and sincere ; qualities incident to the family ." 
\LaugJiter and applause'] Need I give you any further reason 
why I congratulate you upon the President you have chosen ? 

But while I praise the rising sun, I also bow to him whose 
race is run. \LaugJiter and cheers.'] I do not know, gentlemen, 
whether there were any Sillimansin the Mayflower. Probably 
there were not, but I know that three lives like his will carry 
us back into actual and personal contact with the Pilgrim 
Fathers themselves ; and that all the way back to the Ply- 
mouth Colony, you won't find a more courteous gentleman or 
a truer chip of Plymouth Rock itself. {Applauser\ You do 
well to honor him, gentlemen ; you do not have such a treasure 
always with you. [^Renewed applause.'] He was a resident of 
Brooklyn when there were only 7,000 people in this city, 
whose population has grown to 710,000. He was one of four- 
teen children; a genuine descendant of John Alden and Pris- 
cilla MuUins. He came of that good old original stock of 
which we may say that all the Pilgrim fathers continued to 
have children while life and health and being lasted, and the 
Pilgrim mothers endured, [Laughter and cheers.] and before 
vital statistics had run out, as they have in these degenerate 
days. {Continued laughter ?\ 

Mr. President, why, in Heaven's name did you call on me 
to speak for the "Day We Celebrate?" One who has been 
doing nothing but drink to it and speak of it, to your personal 



30 

knowledge, any time in the last twenty-five years. Why 
didn't you assign it to General Sherman, or to Judge Davis, who 
possibly might have evolved some new idea out of their inner 
consciousness? I think you deserve to be a little abused for 
it, and I proceed to do so. [^LaiighterP\ I think you said, Mr. 
Chairman, that if the Pilgrim fathers could look in upon us 
to-night, a flush of paternal pride and admiration would over- 
spread their features. You couldn't have said anything more 
false to History than that. The Day We Celebrate ! How, 
in Heaven's name, do you celebrate it ? With the drinking of 
toasts, with the fumes of tobacco, with this comprehensive 
riotous living ! Why, if there is anything that could have 
shocked the moral sense and the religious instincts and spirit 
of your Pilgrim sires, it would be just such a scene as this, and 
instead of a ''flush of paternal pride and admiration " over- 
coming their features, they would have drawn back from the 
door in horror and disgust. Why, in 1631, the General Court in 
the Plymouth Colony parsed an act that anybody found guilty 
of the crime of drinking of toasts should be liable to a fine of 
two shillmgs, and to stand in the stocks until the fine was paid. 
\Laughtcr.'\ Three years later the Court of Assistants enacted, 
that any man found smoking tobacco in public should be fined 
two shillings and sixpence, and that no keeper of an ordi- 
nary should, under any circumstances, allow it to be taken 
in his house. So there are two penal offences, sir, for which 
each man in this company would be entitled to have his ears 
cropped and to be stood in the pillory for at least one hour. 
Don't tell me that they look on this scene with pride and 
admiration ! They would have said, " Who are the people that 
presume to be singing praises and smoking pipes and segars 
in our honor? How do they live? What is the great object 
of their life ? " And when we should have been compelled 
to answer, " They are chiefly absorbed in making money," 
how would our Pilgrim fathers have started back aghast. 
Because our Pilgrim fathers could not afford to make money ; 
they were engaged in better things. And again they would 
have asked, " Who are those men ? What are their occupa- 
tions ? Are they honest planters? Are they preachers of the 
Word ? " No ; mostly lawyers, brokers, merchants. Why, we 
never had a lawyer for the first fifty years in all New England. 



31 

A broker? You would have to define it, just as you would 
their own " straddles " and " puts " and " calls " to make the 
men of the Mayflower comprehend what manner of man it 
is. The fathers would not know who they were. Merchants 
also, were unknown among them in the first generation. 
Their moral sense being thus completely overwhelmed, how 
would their religious instincts have started when they put the 
question, "Well, who are these worshippers at the shrine of 
the Pilgrim fathers ? Orthodox Congregationalists all to a 
man, of course ? " And when they received the answer, 
Well, yes ; Brooklyn Congregationalists, \^LaugJiter.\ a hand- 
ful of them ; and the rest are, what ? Episcopalians, Baptists, 
Methodists, Unitarians, Quakers, — men believing, each one 
as he pleases, and letting every other man believe as he likes, — 
I think, then, that good old Edward Winslow, with head 
averted and downcast eyes, would take this boy of his lineage 
and blood by the hand and lead him away from this place and 
this assemblage, as company not fit to be kept by a true child 
of the Pilgrims. \_Laiight(r.~\ 

Mr. President, I had intended to go on and say a great 
many serious things about the landing of the Pilgrims on 
Plymouth Rock, and the sufferings that they endured upon 
and after the landing, and the glorious work of the fathers in 
founding the common schools and colleges ; about the glory 
of Harvard, the wondrous virtues of John Winthrop and John 
Eliot and Elder Brewster, and of Roger Williams, the true 
founder of religious liberty in America and in the world. 
[^Applaiisc.~\ But as you have listened to me with extreme 
patience and consideration, I will trespass no more upon you, 
but bid you God-speed and farewell. [^Laughter and applaiisc.'] 

President Winsloiv: — The next toast upon the list before 
me is, 

"THE SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES OF NEW ENG- 
LAND — THE FATHERS FOUNDED THEM IN THE EARLY 
DAYS ; THEY HAVE KEPT ALIVE THE SPIRIT OF THE FATH- 
ERS IN THE LATER DAYS." 

President Dwight, of Yale University, who was to have 



32 

responded to this toast, is unfortunately prevented from being 
with us, as we had expected. His absence, caused by the death 
of Professor Kingsley, of Yale University, is greatly regretted 
by us all. We will, therefore, pass the toast assigned to Presi- 
dent Dwight and proceed to the next thing in order, which is 
to sing two verses of the hymn "America," and in order that 
wc may keep in order, Mr. Ali, our cornetist, will play a portion 
of the air so as to get you into the right time ; after that 
you are to rise, upon his signal, and sing these verses with 
hearty will. 

(The company then rose and sang the following with excel- 
lent effect :) 

" My country, 'tis of thee, 
Sweet land of liberty, 
* Of thee I sing ; 

Land where my fathers died, 
Land of the pilgrims' pride, 
From every mountain side, 
Let Freedom ring. 

" Our fathers' God to Thee, 
Author of liberty. 

To Thee we sing ; 
Long may our land be bright 
With freedom's holy light ; 
Protect us by Thy might. 
Great God, our King." 



President Winslozv: — The next regular toast is, 

"THE PURITAN SPIRIT; A MIGHTY FORCE 
IN HUMAN PROGRESS." 

I will say of the gentleman who is to respond to this toast, 
though he may not be known to you all as well as he is to 
some of us, that some signal honors have come to him. If it 
were not for referring to personal matters, I should say that 
the first great honor that came to him was that he was my 
room-mate at Cambridge, thirty-six years ago, and behaved 
pretty well. \_Laughter.'] The friendship there formed has 



33 

never suffered a jar. In his professional life he has held the 
office of District Attorney, an office, you know, which, in some 
parts of the country, includin g this part, " means business." 
But the district in which our friend held the office included 
Plymouth Rock, and so, of course, you will naturally infer the 
district attorney business was rather dull. In its traditions and 
influence, Plymouth Rock is a district attorney. {^Applause^ 

But another honor that has come to our friend — and I 
think it a very choice one, whatever he may say of it — is, that 
that great philanthropist and statesman, Charles Sumner, in 
his last will and testament, associated him with the poet 
Longfellow as his literary executor, \_Applausc^ The burden 
of that office, because of the death of Longfellow, has come 
upon our friend. How ably, capably, and faithfully he has 
performed it thus far, the two volumes that have been pub- 
lished, attest. It is with special pleasure that I introduce the 
Hon. Edward L. Pierce, of Boston. S^Applause^^ 

ADDRESS OF THE HON. EDWARD L. PIERCE. 

Your President's kind words call up precious memories of 
our school days at Cambridge passed in the quiet and still air 
of delightful studies. We were young then ; I younger than 
he, though you would hardly believe it ; each with less solid 
weight than we now have, though neither had then a lean 
and hungry look, and with each hope elevating and joy bright- 
ening his crest. Knowing, as I do, the roots of his character, 
I have watched with all the interest of early friendship his 
career in this city of his adoption. As I have seen him in 
the chair this evening, I have been reminded how sturdy and 
enduring are the Puritan characteristics, even in person. I once 
remarked to one of the present generation of the Adamses, 
how strikingly he and his brothers resembled his father, grand- 
father and great-grandfather in stature, features and bald- 
ness. " Perhaps so," he replied, " but, after all, I have only 
one-eighth of my grandfather in me." Your President is, I 
beHeve, only collaterally connected with, and also removed 
many generations from. Colonel John Winslow, of Marshfield, 
who with a sad heart removed the Acadians, so that, instead of 
one-eighth, he may not have one-thousandth part of the provin- 



34 

cial ofificer's blood in him. But the historian of " Montcalm 
and Wolfe " describes him at the time of that transaction as 
fifty-three years of age, with double chin, smooth forehead, 
arched eyebrows, round, rubicund face, and a close powdered 
wig — a fair description, I submit, of your President, Judge 
Winslow, if he had not left his judicial appendage at home. 
\Lmigliter7\^ I trust I do not anticipate titles for more than a 
year. {Cheers?^ 

We are all happy to be at a New England dinner. To most 
of you, however, it is a greater novelty than to myself, for I 
sit at three hundred and sixty-five New England dinners 
during a year ; [^Laughter and cheers,^ not all, indeed, so 
sumptuous as this; for, if they were, my household and myself 
would hardly live to complete the annual round. {^Laiighter?^ 

Your President has mentioned my relations to the late 
Senator from Massachusetts, the friend of my youth and later 
years. It is interesting to recall that Mr. Sumner's last appear- 
ance before the people, his last public words, except brief 
utterances in the Senate, were at the New England dinner in 
New York, a few weeks before his death, where he was in com- 
pany with General Sherman as fellow-guest ; going, as he said 
at the time, under pressure from his friend, Mr. Cowdin, and 
taking the only holiday he had allowed himself in a long 
public service. His tribute to the Pilgrims marks the end of 
his career, as his oration on " The True Grandeur of Nations," 
in 1845, marks its beginning. 

It is always most pleasant to me to find myself among the 
New Englanders of New York; for I have to confess to a kind 
of feeling that better than a New Englander at home is a New 
Englander transplanted. \Applansc^ The strong blood of his 
race which the emigrant carries with him is quickened by the 
larger life which awaits him in this metropolitan centre ; and 
more than those left behind he values his precious birthright. 
And is it not a truth of history, that the best fruits of a great 
idea are often yielded elsewhere than on the spot where the 
idea was first planted ? If you visit Eisleben where Luther 
was born and died, you will find, as I found, the churches on 
Sunday, even the one most associated with his memory, almost 
deserted, while the ale-houses, at the same hour, are crowded ; 
yet the power of the great Reformer still sways Northern 



35 

Europe, and is an enduring fact in civilization. {Applatise?^ 
You need not seek modern Geneva, that miniature of Paris, 
that factory of watches and music boxes, to study the 
fruit of Calvin's work. You will see there a statue to Rous- 
seau, whose dreams and confessions could have been spared 
without loss to mankind, but none to the man who, as thinker 
and magistrate, is the greatest in her history. Not there, but 
rather in Scotland and America, will you find the immortal 
stamp of his mind and character. And now, when so many of 
our New England cities and populous towns are passing under 
the control of crowds who have no connection, by blood or 
training or ideas, with that early history we commemorate, 
the time may not be far off when you will have to seek on 
the farms of the Western Reserve of Ohio, of Michigan, North- 
ern Illinois, Missouri, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas, 
for the best realization of the Puritan influence and character. 
I have myself trodden with a traveler's interest the lanes 
and fields of Scrooby and Austerfield associated with Brew- 
ster and Bradford, and have visited in Leyden the house where 
Robinson taught his flock, and the cathedral opposite where 
he was buried ; but I cannot confess to any new inspiration 
drawn from these spots. The Puritan spirit has no limitations 
of place ; it exists wherever there is united fear of God, love of 
man, stubborn loyalty to convictions, the spirit of self-sacrifice, 
the readiness to suffer, and, if need be, to die for a good cause, 
be that cause a pure faith, the freedom of the slave, the pre- 
servation of the Union, or the safety of society. {Applause^ 
In technical dogmas there was little of the Puritan in Channing, 
Palfrey,Parker, Mann, Sumner and Andrew; in dress, habits and 
nurture, how unlike our grim forefathers were the fair youths 
whose names Harvard has carved on memorial slabs ; there is 
nothing in this brilliant scene that revives the picture of the 
men with wan faces, meagre fare and Bible speech, whom we 
are here to honor. But, nevertheless, the Puritan spirit hassur-, 
vived all mingling of blood, all changes in manners, all new de- 
partures in theology, all reconstructions of government. It has 
survived in the martyrdoms of Torrey and Lovejoy and Brown; 
in reformers and statesmen who have broken the fetters of the 
slave ; in the benefactors of schools and colleges and noble 
charities ; in that uncounted host of men of New England 



36 

origin or nurture who have stood for a lofty ideal of duty and 
sacrifice ; in the heroes celebrated and unknown who fought for 
the cause of Liberty and Union ; it lives also in us if we do 
our part, as they did theirs, in the cause of good government, 
of pure administration, of honest money, of equal laws for all 
men of every race within our borders, Caucasian, African or 
Semetic. {Applause?)^ To-day, among whom, outside of the 
Quakers, do you find the leaders in the cause of justice to 
the Indian, confronting land grabbers, and hardest of all to 
bear, the indifference and sneers of even Christian people ? It 
is among New England men, statesmen like Henry L. Dawes 
in the Senate, [App/atfs^,'] and citizens like William H. Lyon, 
your townsman, honored member and officer of your Society. 
{Loud applause']. 

Though not by education or profession a Calvinist, I have a 
profound respect for the body of believers who bear that name. 
If they have contemplated with a too lurid imagination the 
depths of human depravity, they have always pointed to the 
heights which human nature might attain. With all the Apoll- 
yons of human sin, they have ever been ready to grapple. 
You never saw a Calvinist who was a pessimist or a cynic. 
{Applause.] 

Mr. President, I attempt no distinction between Pilgrims 
and Puritans, between the colonies of Plymouth and Massa- 
chusetts Bay, between Carver, and Brewster and Bradford on 
the one hand, and the Winthrops on the other, both happily 
united before the close of the seventeenth century, and all com- 
prehended in our filial gratitude and affection. Looking at 
them as men of their time, I have no sympathy with any one, 
historian, or critic of dogmas and manners, who has a sneer for 
their faith, their observances, their ways of living and speaking. 
It may be, as one has pleasantly said, that they came in a month 
of winds and storms, and took a cold which has affected the 
intonations of their posterity. {Laughter.] 

I prefer always to regard the Pilgrim Puritans or the Puri- 
tan Pilgrims in a large way, as emancipators of the human 
mind, as evangelists of liberty to mankind. I delight to recall 
the confession of Hume, partisan of the Stuarts and cynic as 
well, that the Puritans kindled and preserved in England the 
spark of liberty, and that to them the English owe the whole 



37 

freedom of their Constitution. I remember that Bancroft, 
professor of a different faith, attributes to Calvin the influence 
which enfranchised the human mind, and carried the doctrines 
of popular Hberty over the globe. Dean Stanley, dignitary 
of the church from whose persecutions our Fathers escaped, 
standing in Leyden street in Plymouth, said thoughtfully 
and reverently, "This is the most historic street in the world." 
{^Applause.'] 

It deserves special note that the few questionable acts of 
our fathers appear in a better light as the records of their time 
are subjected to keener research and criticism. Allowing all that 
is due to Roger Williams for his assertion of " soul liberty," 
modern studies have shown that this " conscientiously conten- 
tious man," as one has called him, this "arch-individualist," as 
another has called him, was excluded from the Massachusetts 
Colony for reasons almost wholly, if not purely political ; for 
his disturbance of the public peace, his insubordination to 
civil authority outside of matters of religion and belief, his 
assault on the foundations of civil government. He was vis- 
ited with none of the dire penalties inflicted in those days on 
heresy, and was simply allowed to withdraw to the milder 
climate and better soil of the Narragansetts. Dr. Dexter's 
monograph on this question has been accepted as a true ver- 
sion of history by eminent historical students of Rhode Island, 
like Professor Diman. 

The removal of the Acadians a century later, in part 
executed by Colonel Winslow, has been another of the grave 
charges against our fathers. Romance has pictured their sad 
migration from Grand Pre to distant Louisiana. Their tale of 
woe has been told in the hexameters of our most renowned 
poet. The imagined face of Evangeline, fair maiden of seven- 
teen summers, reproduced in illustrated gift books and hang- 
ing on cottage walls, has taught impressible childhood how 
cruel were the men of New England of the eighteenth cen- 
tury. But it now appears from Mr. Parkman's authentic nar- 
rative, that the Acadians, stimulated and wrought upon by 
French priests and emissaries, were a hostile body encamped 
Avithin British territory, in dangerous proximity to the enemy's 
line, at a dread moment when two well matched powers 
were contending for the mastery of the continent. Nor was 



38 

the extreme measure of expatriation resorted to until all 
efforts to bring the Acadians to their allegiance had failed. 

The men of New England here and everywhere, with all 
their traditions of freedom, are again summoned to the defense 
of the old cause now assailed from a new direction. Our 
fathers contended for liberty of conscience and of worship. 
A later generation fought for the right to tax themselves, or 
in a larger sense, for national autonomy and development. 
Still a later one amid fire and blood broke the fetters of four 
million slaves, and welded this nation together. {Applause?^ 
But now the right of men and women to labor for themselves 
and their families is assailed by terrorism and violence. To the 
aspirations of toiling millions. Christian America will always 
respond with sympathy, favoring all social and industrial ar- 
rano-ements which will promote their welfare. But to one 
thing as a free people, we must hold fast. The right of every 
man to work for whom he pleases, and as long as he pleases, 
and for what wages he pleases, — with a corresponding right 
in every man who wished to employ him, — is a fundamental, 
an original, a primordial right, lying deeper than statutes or 
any human devices, just as essential as the right of every 
man to own himself, born with us and derived from nature 
herself. [^ApplauseJ] If we are not to hold this right free, un- 
limited and absolute, if it is to be yielded to threats, to 
boycotts, to the despotism of self-constituted bodies, vain 
then are all that Milton, and Sidney, and Harrington, and 
Adams, and Jefferson have written! Vain, too, are those 
fields of blood at Saratoga and Gettysburg! Are freemen, 
sons of Pilgrim and Revolutionary sires, struggling to give 
bread to their children, to be driven from their work- 
shops, to be compelled to lose the fruits of their labor, 
to mortgage and sell their homes, to draw from the savings 
bank the last farthing of their deposits, and then with their 
starving and weeping families to go forth to beggary, or the 
almshouse, at the dictation of any illegal and irresponsible 
power? Men of New England, it is for you to answer! All 
honor to that elected Mayor of New York,* though not a New 
Englander, who when standing for the suffrages of his fellow 
citizens, the other day, kept his manhood and boldly struck at 
dangerous heresies. \_Applaiisc.'\ All honor to that high pre- 

* Abram S. Hewitt. 



39 

late,t though not a Protestant, who with clear thoughts, set in a 
vigorous style, has just ministered to his flock in timely warn- 
ings. 

On Friday last, the poet, who by his sympathy with her 
ideals, her history, her scenery, and her common life, is dis- 
tinctively the poet of New England, completed his seventy- 
ninth year. Rich in fame and the gratitude of mankind, as he 
is, we bespeak for John G. Whittier continued length of days. 
\Loud applause r\ He will allow us to apply to all New Eng- 
land, what he has written of his beloved Massachusetts : 

"For well she keeps her ancient stock, 
The stubborn strength of Pilgrim Rock, 
And still maintains, with milder laws. 
And clearer light, the Good Old Cause." 

{General applause?^ 



President Winslow: — The next regular toast is, 

"AMERICAN LAW AND LIBERTY." 

The distinguished gentleman who is to respond to this 
toast is about closing a long, a strong, and an honorable career 
as a Judge of the Supreme Court. In this hour, when some 
of the fundamental principles of liberty seem to be threatened 
in certain quarters, if not endangered, it would not surprise 
me if we should hear from him a voice for the right of no 
uncertain sound. I have the honor to present the Hon. Noah 
Davis. {Applause?^ 

ADDRESS OF HON. NOAH DAVIS. 

Mr. President and Pilgrims of Brooklyn : 

I was never so happily placed in my life at a public dinner. 
Here on my right hand is the Church militant [referring to 
Rev. Mr. Lyman] ; on my left, the army triumphant [Generals 
Sherman and Slocum] — and between them am I, to whom 
your President has alluded only as the "setting sun" of Justice. 
[Applause.'] I am glad to stand here to-night to speak to the 
f Archbishop Corrigan. 



40 

toast that is given to me, but I feel bound, before I enter upon 
that subject, to repel some of the imputations on the pilgrims 
of Brooklyn that have fallen from the lips of Mr. Choate. It 
is not true that if the Pilgrim fathers lived to-day they would 
not sit down to just as good a dinner as they could get. That 
. is precisely what they did in life, and precisely what Mr. 
Choate, one of their descendants, has more often than any 
other man, illustrated in his life. \Laug]iter?[ My memory 
goes back easily to a period of time when that gentleman was 
wholly contented with a diet of milk, [Laughter?^ but with 
him appetite has grown with what it feeds upon, until to-night 
he stands here probably the best living eater of New England 
dinners in the United States. His Pilgrim fathers gave him 
that appetite, as they gave similar appetites to all their sons. 
\Laiigliter7^ 

I like to recall and reflect upon the glorious deeds of the 
army that subdued the rebellion. A little more than a year 
ago we laid in his honored tomb the great leader of that army. 
Of Napoleon it was often said that he manifested his best 
qualities as a soldier in the selection of the generals who led 
his armies to victory. So Grant has still, thank God, the liv- 
ing witnesses in Sherman and Sheridan of his capacity as a 
general to choose men always triumphant, always obedient, 
always able to meet and master the situation in which accident 
or genius had placed them. \^Applansc?\^ And here by the side 
of General Sherman sits the commander of the left wing of 
the army of Georgia throughout the long march from Atlanta 
to the sea — your honored fellow-citizen, to whom you have 
more than once paid tributes of respect through the ballot- 
box, and of whose record in civil, as in military life, no man 
can speak aught but praise. \^Hcarty cheers for General Sloc7ini.'\ 
I like also to give to the army the honor which so largely 
belongs to it, in re-establishing and maintaining the American 
Union, and clothing it with the purified garment of universal 
liberty. \^Applausc^ When slavery, like the serpents that 
bound Laocoon and his sons, held the Constitution and the 
Union within its crushing folds, what Congress would not leg- 
islate, what Presidents could not execute, what Courts dare 
not adjudicate, the army achieved. [I^oiid applause^ It was 
the sword that severed the serpent's folds; it was the hand of 



41 

war that plucked away the writhing fragments and flung them 
aside forever. [Renewed applaiise.~\ 

When, three years ago this night, I came to the annual 
banquet of this Society, I was forced to cross by a ferry-boat, 
the arm of the sea that then divided two great cities. To-night 
I came by carriage over the beautiful and monumental roadway 
of art that now unites them. The cosummation of that union 
in all its benefits and blessings is yet to come, and ultimately 
to give to the world a single city, unsurpassed in wealth and 
power, intelligence and influence, amongst the peoples of the 
earth. Upon the sure and rapid approach of that event both 
Brooklyn and New York may well be congratulated. [App/(77{se.'\ 
Whether it will unite them in the commemoration on the same 
day of the landing of the Pilgrim fathers, may perhaps be 
doubted. [LniigJiter^^ 

In recounting the virtues of the Pilgrim fathers, the tender 
consideration with which they enabled two great cities to cele- 
brate their landing on different days, ought not to be lost sight 
of. Few people, under such circumstances, would have display- 
ed such impartial forethought. One landing would have sufificed 
them, and when they got once ashore on that bleak New Eng- 
land coast, they would have stayed there, and left Brooklyn to 
celebrate the 2ist of December, and West Brooklyn to do the 
like, or go without a celebration. To reembark for the purpose 
of relanding on the 22d, that their posterity might celebrate 
either or both of those days, was an act which the Pilgrims 
across the Bridge do not appreciate. Brooklyn alone does 
justice to both events by their banquet to-night and their 
to-morrow of sober reflection. [Applause and langJiter?[ 

The sentiment you have given me to-night, " American 
Law and Liberty," opens an almost unbounded field. Its con- 
sideration may well begin with that marvellous evolution of 
law, order and liberty, found in the compact of the Mayflower, 
which contains in briefest form the essence and soul of true 
republican government. It recognizes God in human govern- 
ments, and His providences in their workings and achieve- 
ments. It recognizes man in his equality of right in represen- 
tation and protection, and sees in him the true and only just 
source of the authority that governs him. It establishes the 
written constitution as the charter of governmental agency, 



42 

and "just and equal laws and measures," as its aim and limit. 
If the Pilgrim fathers had done nothing more than frame this 
instrument, with its simple and sublime embodiment of repub- 
lican principles, they would have won the admiration and 
applause of mankind. [^Applause.'] 

After more than two hundred and sixty years of more or 
less vigorous life, American law^ and liberty can hardly be 
said to have outgrown the garments in which the humble pil- 
grims of the Mayflower wrapped its infant form. It has been 
developed in the constitutions of Nations and of States. It 
has challenged the virtues of Washington, the genius of Ham- 
ilton and Jefferson, and the skill and energies of hosts of 
statesmen and soldiers, and received the baptism of blood on 
the field of numberless battles, yet there it stands in its sub- 
limity and purity, an unsurpassed expression of the best excel- 
lencies of a popular government " that shall not perish from 
the earth." {App/ausc.^ 

American law^ and liberty to-day rest upon solid bases. 
There is no dif^culty in comprehending their nature and oper- 
ation, both upon the people and their government. But we 
are in danger of forgetting that in all essential elements they 
are American, and as such must be preserved and maintained 
for ourselves and our posterity against all that threatens their 
existence and perpetuity, either at home or abroad. 

We have not responsibility for the governments of other 
peoples and countries, but for our own we have vast responsi- 
bilities, which we cannot safely forget or neglect. [Applause.'] 
We have held our government and its unbounded freedom 
altogether too cheaply. We forget what it has cost us in 
blood and treasure and the sufferings of the past. It is time 
to recall, and act boldly and firmly upon the fact that the 
Constitution of tlie United States, and the government it 
creates, belong to us — and to no other people on earth ; and 
that it is our right and duty to protect them and hand them 
down to our posterity as pure and strong as they have been 
given to us. [Applause.'] 

Against all dangers of external war we would guard them 
with our lives and fortunes, and if needed, meet a world in 
their defence. But we have no such danger to threaten. Our 
dangers are internal and more insidious. 



43 

We welcome to our shores all races of the world who, in 
habits, customs and thought, can assimilate with ourselves, 
and thus enjoy in common with us, the blessings of liberty. 
But the condition is always implied that they shall be faithful 
to the principles of our government and true to the duties of 
citizenship. 

We want, and it is time to say, we will have no others. 

Why should we take to our bosoms and nourish and cher- 
ish the enemies of our system ; ready to poison and destroy the 
principles we love. The Socialist, the Communist, the Nihilist, 
the Anarchist, in so far as they are enemies of our government 
and its principles, have no right to the protection of what they 
seek to destroy. {Applaiisc^^ 

Liberty of conscience, liberty of thought, and liberty of 
speech are the guaranteed rights of American citizens, and they 
must be preserved as part of the elemental principles of our 
Constitution, but \\\€\x alntsc, wdien they seek to subvert princi- 
ples, destroy order and law, and substitute anarchy, are not 
guaranteed. \_Apphmse^ The doom of all who organize force 
to resist the law and its officers by the new and fearful destruc- 
tive inventions of the day, must be swift and certain. \J^oud 
applause.'] And while we bear this in mind we must not forget 
that we owe to a world at peace all the security we can give 
against the fearful crimes that its enemies can commit in our 
land. Home Rule is a principle Americans love and will main- 
tain at home and will gladly see prevail in other lands ; but 
we will not forget that the greatest enemy Home Rule has on 
earth is the wretched dynamiter, who seeks to hide his crimes 
behind the shelter of our Constitution and laws. Every blow 
he strikes from our shores is an assassin's stroke against Amer- 
ican law and liberty, as well as against the peace and happiness 
of mankind. 

The sanctuary we afford to the oppressed of all lands can- 
not be truly sacred when we allow its protection to yield 
opportunity to those enemies of the human race v/ho strike 
blindly at all order and law, and aim to overthrow the princi- 
ples of justice that protect them. [^Applatise.] 

In maintaining American law and liberty we have assur- 
ance of home and its virtues, peace and its joys, protection 
and its safety, religion and its freedom, equality and its hopes, 



44 



property and its opportunities, labor and its achievements, 
education and its blessings ; and therefore, it is that American 
Law and Liberty must, at all hazards, be maintained. [Long 
and continued applause^ 



President Winsloiv : — The next regular toast is, 

"THE LEGACY OF THE PILGRIMS AND 
THE PURITANS." 

This toast is in the hands of a master workman. I shall 
add no words of mine to prove it, but leave the case with him. 
I have the pleasure to introduce the Rev. John R. Paxton, 
D.D. [Applausc^^ 

ADDRESS OF REV. JOHN R. PAXTON, D. D. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Neiv England Society of 

Brooklyn : 

It was not the rebellion of the belly against short rations, 
but the revolt of the soul against tribunals, that coerced con- 
science — settled New England. In our time people emigrate 
because they are hungry and want bread. It was to better 
their fortunes that the Chinese and the Irish came to our 
shores. They wept when they sailed away from the Flow- 
ery Kingdom and Erin ; they came unwillingly ; but hunger 
has no option ; they came for bread. But the Pilgrim fathers 
and William Penn, of my State of Pennsylvania, came to this 
land to clothe their souls with righteousness, and not to fill 
their stomachs with bread. There is a vast difference between 
a new country settled by empty stomachs and one settled by 
hungry souls and consciences determined to be free. [Applanse.] 

If the cabin of the Mayflower had been filled with a crowd 
of hungry peasants fleeing starvation and thinking only of 
bread, then the Declaration of Independence would never 
have been signed, and Bunker Hill would never have been 
fought. [Applaz/se.'] People who emigrate on their belly never 



45 

found great States. \_Lmirjhter.'\ M. Taine says, " A society 
cannot be founded only on the pursuit of pleasuie and power, 
a society can only be founded on respect for liberty and just- 
ice." I say, on conscience and God. The Kingdom of Israel 
which gave us religion and morality, was created by men who 
left bread and plenty and ease to keep company with God 
and endure hardness in a strange land. The French Revolu- 
tion was sprung by hunger driven to desperation ; but when 
that hunger had glutted by the guillotine its hate, and was 
filled with bread and flushed with wine, it ended in Bonaparte 
instead of Bourbon. The English Revolution was backed on 
God and fought for liberty and justice and the rights of man, 
and it incorporated its victory in the English constitution and 
its good works still follow it in mother country and our own 
land. [" Hear! hear! " and applause?^ I say then, Mr. Presi- 
dent and gentlemen, that people who want more bread emi- 
grate in our day. Who ever heard of an English gentleman 
or nobleman coming to us except for a rich wife, to go back 
to spend American money in London follies ? {JjangJitcr and 
cheers] But the Pilgrim fathers were not at all an unwashed 
lot of tinkers and peasants, driven by want and armed with 
the fanaticism of superstition. They were a well-bred com- 
pany. Brewster's manor-house, at Scrooby, was a gentleman's 
residence. In the cabin of the Mayflower were Oxford grad- 
uates, fellows of Cambridge ; men who knew the Humanities 
as well as the Hebrew Psalms and fasts. {Applause.] It was 
conscience and God ; it was a loftier ideal of the worth of a 
human soul and the rights of a man, that filled the sails of the 
Mayflower ; not poverty, superstition and ignorance. {Loud 
applause^ 

Now the Pilgrim father who landed in 1620 was a Christian 
and a gentleman ; he was a man of convictions, ////.y charity, 
toleration and concession on equal terms. The Pilgrim father 
had joints in his spine ; he could bow. The Puritan, on the 
other hand, who came in 1630, was a man of convictions, a 
Christian, but a Christian minus charity, toleration and con- 
cession. The Puritan spine was invertebrate, unjointed ; he 
could not bow, not even to his God — for he insisted on stand- 
ing erect before the throne of high Heaven in his prayers. 
I reverence and love the Pilgrims ; I admire and esteem the 



46 

Puritans. The Pilgrim demanded liberty to worship God 
after his own conscience, but he conceded the same right to 
others ; strict with himself in conforming his conduct to a 
rigid creed, yet he was gentle, mild and tolerant, and he 
offered asylum to Roger Williams. The Puritan, on the other 
hand, was a sort of Procrustes ; he had his little, narrow, iron 
bed ; everybody must lie on it and fit it to a hair. If one 
were too long, they cut off his legs or his head, as the case 
might be, to make him fit. If one Avere too short, they length- 
ened him in various Vv'ays ; for instance, by the stocks — which 
stretch, you know, — by the expansive power of heat in a 
brand, or by the elongating virtue of a rope with a heavy 
weight suspended on it from a gibbet. Still, I admire the 
Puritans, because such men as they carry the world before 
them. When you find a man who is as ready to suffer death 
for the truth of his creed as he is to inflict it, you have got 
the man who, eventually, will master your world. \Applause7\ 
Of course the Puritans were narrow from our point of view. 
" But so," says Mr. Lowell, " the sword of righteousness is 
narrow." Certainly the Puritans had but one idea, but it was 
an idea born, gentlemen, of the spirit and not of the flesh ; an 
idea of the stuff St. Paul's was made of, and you know wdiat 
that did ; it turned your world upside down, overthrew the 
unclean gods of Paganism, broke the fasces and trailed the 
eagles of thirty legions in the dust, and dragged the dazed 
Caesar from his throne. {Applause?^ Mr. President and gentle- 
men, all the epochs in human history have been created by 
men who were narrow, if you please, but intense, by men who 
had an undoubting conviction of the righteousness of their 
causj. An age of wide and varied culture, such as ours, has 
never produced heroisms, and never can be an age of martyr- 
doiHii. I admire a Puritan — at long range — \Laug]itcrP\ far 
enough away from him to differ from him safely, without feel- 
ing the weight of his Sinaitic hand and the oppressions of his 
iron creed. I thank God that I was not living, with keen 
senses and a jovial soul, in Salem town in 1692, it would 
have gone ill with me, for the E.ev. Samuel Parris, of unenvi- 
able memory, would have probably hanged me by the neck 
until I was dead, — to the greater glory of his God. {I^ajigJiter?^ 
The Pilgrim fathers and the Puritans were alike in this, 



47. 

that they insisted on their right to stand on their own feet, to 
see with their own eyes, to breathe, not through a King's lungs, 
a Pope's lungs, a Parliament's lungs, or a Presbytery's lungs, 
but through their own lungs. In maintenance of this right 
they came to our wilderness shores and they laid broad and 
deep the corner-stone of our republican institutions. [Aj^- 
plause?\ A Pilgrim respected himself as well as reverenced 
his terrible God. He had an independent mind ; he was 
accented on the individual, not on a Court, or on a King, on a 
Parliament, or on a Church. He believed in the worth of a 
human soul, in the dignity of a man, in the personal right to 
cleave a space for himself in the world, and to go to Heaven 
by his own road, unhindered by King, Prelate or Presbytery. 
Lowell hit off the Puritan to a hair, disclosed his secret, and 
painted his portrait, in two lines : 

" John p. Robinson, he, 
Said they didn't know ever\'thing down in Judee." 

\LaugJLter.^ 

That is a Mayflower Pilgrim ; that is a Yankee of to-day. The 
independent mind, the right to find a way through this V\'orld, 
or to make one for himself; the right to breathe through his 
own lungs, to do his own thinking and his own repenting — 
that kind of man was Elder Brewster and the first Winslow, 
and that kind of man was Emerson, Garrison and John 
Brovv'n. \^Applaiisc^^ Pc is in your blood, and much of it in 
Brooklyn. You still call your churches " Independent " and 
" Congregationalist," for the son, as well as the sire, of New 
England is a good driver, with all his isms and his reforms, 
but he is a balky horse in harness ; he is hard to drive, and he 
never takes kindly to blinds or to bits or to reins. \Laiighter 
and cheers?^ Nevertheless, on the New England idea, gentle- 
men, namely, the right to stand on one's own feet, the sov- 
reignity of the individual soul, — on that idea this Republic 
was founded and on that idea must it continue to stand if it is 
to endure. For the idea that a man is not a pawn to protect 
a king, or to hedge a bishop, or to be sacrificed for a queen or 
a moss-covered castle, is at the bottom of all our liberties and 
all our rights. It is the old Puritan idea ; it is your legacy 
from your sires ; and that idea has made your little New 



48 

England great, dominant and foremost in shaping the desti- 
nies of our country, in fostering institutions of learning, in 
advocating the rights of man, in redressing wrongs and in rais- 
ing up for and furnishing to the Republic successive genera- 
tions statesmen, philosophers, poets, historians, reformers and 
scholars, who have marched in the van of all our progress, and 
who have been and still are firm in loyalty to our institutions 
and foremost in enriching our literature and adorning our 
country with their works of genius and patriotism. \^Applanse?\ 
Let the lavender little fellows criticize the harsh features of 
the stern Puritan; it is small business. They were masterly, 
wonderful, colossal men, your ancestors ; they believed that 
a little distinct universe walked around under their steeple- 
crowned hats, — a universe God-made, God-understood, and to 
God alone responsible ; and the priceless legacy they left you is 
individual right, personal accountability, self-respect, the appro- 
bation of one's own conscience, constancy to truth as you 
understand it, loyalty to the best light you have as you see it 
shining on your path. That is the legacy of Plymouth Rock ; 
and God grant that the billows of passion, the strife of parties, 
the conflict of classes, the despair of hunger, the rage of 
atheism, or the greed of corporate power never submerge Ply- 
mouth Rock. God grant that our degenerate hands shall 
never throw away, like the base Judean, the two pearls richer 
than all the gifts of fortune, than all the prizes of life, the two 
pearls of an unfettered conscience and a free body; a mind 
imbued with reverence toward the ordaining God, and a hand 
open and friendly to all that elevates humanity, but a hand 
stern and terrible, a hand clenched and uplifted to strike all 
oppressors of conscience and all who would corrupt freedom 
or menace human rights. \Applaiise?i^ 



Prisidcnt Winslozv : — The next toast is, 

"OUR SISTER SOCIETIES," 

and it will be responded to by the Hon. Granville P. Hawes. 
\Applause^ 



49 

ADDRESS OF HON. GRANVILLE P. HAWES. 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemoi : 

I desire to thank you all, in behalf of the New England 
Society of New York, for your courtesy and kind reception. 
Owing to the lateness of the hour I can scarcely do more, but I 
know you will bear with me a moment if I express a kind but 
firm dissent to a remark made by the brilliant and eloquent 
divine who has just preceded me. He, as well as others, have 
spoken in glowing terms of the distinguished soldiers who are 
your guests to-night — General Sherman and General Slocum — 
and I beg to unite in the elogiums so happily expressed by 
others. Their valor and noble conduct in behalf of the country 
is beyond praise and beyond elogium, for it is ineffacably writ- 
ten in the hearts and memories of a grateful people. But 
while this is all true, I would be wanting in duty to myself 
and to the Society I represent, were I to forget in their pres- 
ence and in yours, the gallant and unremembered brave men, 
that star-crowned host that passed to death in the great con- 
flict, when captain and general was no greater in his love and 
valor than the humblest soldier of the command. [A/>p/a?/se.] 
My friend. Dr. Paxton, however, says that " Our age cannot 
produce heroism and martyrdom." Think you, sir, that this 
is true, and in this presence, too ? In i86i the bugle note 
sounded, and this age shook itself into form and into valor and 
into the noblest heroism this world has ever seen. [A/'p/anse.'] 
A million of men awoke to martyrdom at the tap of the drum. 
I almost see them now, in vision, as those martyr hosts filed 
past our honored chieftain here — at Shiloh and Chattanooga 
and Lookout Mountain. They passed in review, sir; but not 
to return — they passed to unknown graves — they passed to the 
realms of silence, their names and memories forgotten except 
by 'the widowed wife and fatherless children in the quiet 
homesteads of the valley and the mountain. Gently they 
passed, and in the " eternal camping ground their silent tents 
are spread." Yes, sir; they passed in review before you, 
indeed, with the touch of the elbow, saluting as they passed, 

Morituri te Salutant 
Say the soldiers as they passed ; 
Not in uttered words they sav it. 



so 

But they feel it as they passed, 
We who are about to perish, 
We salute you as we pass. 

'iContiiiHcd applattsc.'] 

And as tliey passed, those nameless brave men, the thickness 
of battle enshrouded them, and through the waiting years 
you and I and all the world saw the " thin red line extending 
from the ocean to the rivers, now wavering and faltering, then 
quiet but still firmly moving on, further on, tow^ard the south ; 
over the mountains and across the rivers, and growing from 
red to bright crimson, until finally in 1865, it lost itself in the 
sea, and the country awoke again to peace and rest. Well is 
it that the valleys are again fruitful, that the passes over the 
mountains are again secure, and that the rivers flow once 
more unmolested to the Gulf. But far better than all that, is 
the consciousness of our people that the age of heroes and 
martyrs has come back again, and we have discovered, not 
only that there is steel in our hearts, but faith in our souls. 
[Applause.'] This is the greatest triumph since the world 
began, that a whole people, both North and South, stand ready 
to voluntarily die for a principle. This heroic force, grander 
than all others, has permeated our life and is as potential 
to-day as it was in i86i. 

Do you think, sir, that this is not an age of heroes and 
martyrs? I am told of the valor of the Greeks on the plains 
of Troy, or the martyrdom at Thermopylae and Marathon, or 
the bold audacity of the Carthaginian hosts before the gates 
of Roriie, but can they be compared for a moment to the 
heroic martyrdom of the gallant men that passed in review 
before 3'ou into the valley of the shadow, and do you believe 
that th.cse untitled brave v/ill not grov/ more illustrious as the 
years roll on? 

" Warriors gentler, truer, braver, 
Never shall behold the light." 

This, sir, is in my opinion, the most heroic age the world 
has ever known, and I say it not because men have not always 
been courageous and heroic, but because in the place of the 
old has come the new courage — the courage of faith, of con- 
victions, of principle. No longer is there pleasure in fighting, 
or love of glory or spoils. The heroism of the age is a 



51 

heroism of principle which stands fast for an idea, of its own 
free will is ready to die for it. This was the heroism of Car- 
ver and Winslow and Standish and all the early fathers. This 
new-born heroism had its birth at Plymouth in 1620, and it 
has so infused itself through the life of the Nation that if 
to-morrow morning some great wrong were done this people, 
or the honor of the Nation in any respect assailed, a million 
of men of their own free will would be found before night- 
fall, ready to risk their lives and all they hold dear in its de- 
fence. [Applause.'] An age of heroism indeed is this. This 
noble inspiration that has so enriched the life of this Nation 
and made us all heroes and martyrs, has its source and power 
in the teachings and in the example of the early Pilgrim 
fathers, and I believe, and I think I have reason to believe, in 
spite of all that may be slightingly said, that the present age 
is nobler and better, and more heroic in all essentials, than 
their's or than any past age in the world's history. And not 
only in great crises, but in its widest reach, touching the 
minutest details of life, so I believe that this is true. [Ap- 
plause.^ 

But, Mr. Chairman, I have trespassed on your time, and 
have been led away when I should have been talking about 
the society I represent. 

In the first place, I have a grievance, and my society has 
requested me to expostulate with you in a kind but decided 
way. As you know, we have taken great pains to assist you to 
a successful career. We have even gone so far in order to make 
management easy as to take Woodford and put him through all 
the paces of office-holding — Director, Second, First Vice-Presi- 
dent, and finally President. You can readily understand how 
much trouble, not to say anguish, this effort to give you a full 
equipped manager lias cost us; but what did you do in re- 
turn? The very first public meeting you had you started out 
like an undisciplined boy and celebrated the landing of the 
Pilgrims the day before they landed. There was not the 
slightest excuse for this, for there isn't a school-boy in all 
Brooklyn who doesn't know that the Pilgrim Fathers landed 
at Plymouth on the twenty-second day of December, 1620. 
Neither is there a person within the sound of my voice who 
hasn't been taught it from his earliest childhood. I am per- 



5^ 

fectly well aware that this is an age of steam and electricity, 
and sawdust swindling, and all the other improvements, but 
we had a right to expect, and did expect, that you would hold 
fast to the old truths as delivered to us by the fathers. 

As a historic fact they landed on the thirtieth, but we have 
no right to ask questions when we have been taught in the 
English Reader and Webster's Speller that it was the twenty- 
second. You may have a temporary success over the old 
folks, but the end will be ruin, sure and complete. The old 
w^ays are, after all, the safe ways. 

There is an old Norse legend that when King Olof was in 
the midst of his reforms, and changing the old order of things, 
Thor suddenly made his appearance before him and said : 
" Oh yes, King Olof, it is all very beautiful with the sun 
shining on it there, green, fruitful, a right fair home for you, 
and many a sore day had Thor, many a wild fight before he 
could make it so, and now you have a mind to put away 
Thor ; King Olof have a care." He then disappeared. The 
legend merely adds, " King Olof, too, Avas never heard of 
more." No, gentlemen, it will not do to trifle with the 
writers of history, or question your English Readers. Of 
course, you understand that we are not at all jealous across the 
river because you have got ahead of us, but we will merely 
wish you well, and beg of you to return to the faith of the 
fathers. I am also reminded that there are other provisions 
which you have departed from, and which it becomes my 
duty to call to your attention, Among other provisions it was 
enacted that " No person shall take tobacco publicly under the 
penalty of one shilling." This ordinance I see you even now 
rigidly enforce. {T^augJitcr?^ Their instructions to their con- 
stables were somewhat unique. " If, after lo o'clock they see 
lights, to inquire if there be warrantable cause, and if they 
hear noise or disorder, wisely to demand the reason, but if 
they are dancing and singing, wisely admonish them to cease ; 
if they do not discontinue after moderate admonition, then 
the constable to take their names and acquaint the authori- 
ties therewith. If they find young men and maidens not of 
known fidelity walking after lo o'clock, modestly to demand 
the cause, and if they are ill-minded, to watch them narrowly." 
Perhaps the more appropriate provision was one which sen- 



53 

tenced Captain Stone to pay a fine of i,"ioo, and prohibited 
him from coming within the patent without the Governor's 
leave upon pain of death, for caUing Mr. Justice Ludlow "A 
Just-ass." 

Some women would not brew on Saturday because the 
beer would work upon the Lord's day. Drinking healths were 
prohibited by order of the Court for the following reasons : 
First, because it was a thing of no good use ; second, it was 
an inducement to drunkenness ; third, it occasioned much 
waste of time and beer. Yet the narrative naively adds, 
" Even Godly persons were loathe to part with this idle cere- 
mony, though they could not find any arguments to main- 
tain it." 

This was the golden age of New England, wdien vice was 
crushed, especially oppression and extortion in prices and 
wages, which is injustice done to the public. Captain Keyne 
was heavily punished in 1639 for selling goods at exorbitant 
prices. In 1660, one Edward Palmer, having overcharged for 
a pair of stocks, was compelled to sit in them an hour himself. 
Now, many of these enactments exhibit profound wisdom ; 
others were seized because the supposed decrees of the Bible, 
whilst another class decreed as to such matters as appeared 
puerile. But we forget that they acted upon the principle of 
nipping crime in the bud. Things which were forbidden in 
themselves were comparatively unimportant, but if unchecked 
have led to gross crimes. The audacity of Wall street would 
be impossible in a community which fined Thomas Clark £2 
for selling a pair of boots and spurs for fifteen shillings that 
cost him but ten. Women, for abusing their husbands or 
siriking their fathers-in-law were sentenced to be fined or to 
be whipped at the post. There seems to have been no pro- 
vision made as to the mothers-in-law. S^Laughter^ It seems 
that a man for making proposals of marriage to a young lady, 
and presenting the same contrary to the parents' wishes, and 
without their consent, and directly contrary to their mind 
and will, was sentenced to a fine of £^, and should be put 
under bonds for good behavior, and denied the use of any 
means to obtain or retain her afTection. The bond stated that 
"Whereas the said young man hath disorderly and unright- 
eously endeavored to obtain the affections of the young lady, 



54 

against the mind and will of her parents, if, therefore, the said 
young man shall for the future refrain and desist the use of 
any means to obtain or retain her affections as aforesaid, and 
appear at court the first Tuesday of July next, and be of good 
behavior, etc., he shall be releaseci." You can rest assured 
that the young man minded his eye after that and solemnly 
desisted. In 1632, it was enacted that if any man elected to 
the office of Governor would not serve he should be fined ^30 
sterling. If he refused to pay the fine, it was to be levied out 
of his goods and chattels. It was also ordered that if anyone 
chosen to the office of Councilman (which corresponds to our 
Alderman) and declined its acceptance, he should be fined 
iJ"iO each. If, however, one had been twice Governor, he 
could decline without a fine, except they could prevail upon 
him by entreaty. They wisely regulated the dress of the 
ladies, and declared that no garment shall be made with short 
sleeves, and such as have garments with short sleeves shall 
not Avear the same unless they cover the arm to the wrist, 
and hereafter no person whatever shall make any garment for 
women with sleeves more than half an ell wide, which was 
about two feet. \Jja7ig}iter?\^ I notice your ladies' sleeves are 
cut the right length. [Laughter.'] 

Now, gentlemen, I arn av/are tliat we all smile at their 
simple laws, which seem to govern the individual too strictly, 
but I sometimes question whether we have not gone too far 
the other way. It might be very healthy if old Cotton Mather 
could come back once more with all his power and bring back 
with him the real Devil who, as he says, "walked about the 
streets with clanking chains making a dreadful noise," or if not 
that kind some positive Devil who Iiadn't too much " sweet- 
ness and light." What think you would Governor Carver or 
Elder Brewster or William Bradford or Thomas Dudley say, 
and what laws would they enact when they were told that 
there was no longer any legitimate business, and if you wanted 
to buy a bag of coffee, for instance, you must make a bet as to 
what it would be worth next February ; that stock-watering 
and cotton-gambling \vere legal enterprises ; that now our 
newspatjers tried our criminals and terrorized our Courts, or at 
least try to, and are oftentimes successful, and they so intimi- 
date our jurors who have been forced into the jury-box, that 



55 

the poor juryman does not know whether he is trying to serve 
his country or is actually the prisoner at the bar. He is aware 
of one thing, however, and that is that if he does n't vote as 
the newspaper thinks he ought, that he will be hounded for 
weeks, his wife and family disgraced, and he will be charged 
with ignorance, incompetency and venality. Perhaps I speak 
too strongly on this subject, but I fear the reaction which will 
come by this debasement. Respectable citizens will revolt, 
and sympathy will sooner or later come to the aid of the 
criminal, when it would be as misplaced as is the temporary 
but unhappy triumph of the press, that prides itself upon its 
power to intimidate jurors and coerce verdicts. Such a 
triumph is too costly even for so powerful a force in the com- 
munity as a newspaper, and powerful for good, Mr. Chairman, 
as it is for evil. Even a newspaper, however, cannot afford to 
break down the barriers that the community has itself created 
for its own protection. Thank God that we have one Judge 
at least who has the courage of his convictions, the true Puri- 
tan conscience, and he has iron enough in his blood to do his 
whole judicial duty as he understands it, whether the news- 
paper likes it or not, and will give to every man however 
criminal he may be found to be, all that he is entitled to 
under the law, no more and no less. By such honesty aud 
courage alone is there safety to the commonwealth. Public 
opinion, so called, is one thing to-day and another to-morrow ; 
but the eternal principle of justice, as administered under the 
law, are never changing. 

There would be little trouble of this kind, gentlemen, if 
Governor Carver was in charge ; but 1 fear I shall have the 
newspapers after me, and perhaps I had better stop myself, 
for they always have the last word, and that isn't always the 
gentlest. 

I am reminded that I haven't spoken to you of my own 
Society and its venerable antiquity. The Society of the City 
of New York is getting along in a very quiet, old-fogy way. 
As you are holding on to the old ways and having perfect faith 
in the early teachings of the fathers, we read our catechism 
and know when the Pilgrims landed. In that wicked city we 
stand and hold the fort against the encroachments of heresy, 
and all kinds of schism, religious, political and social. 



56 

The Society of New York is, as you know, the oldest 
society of that peculiar character in the country. It was not 
only the oldest New England Society in or out of New Eng- 
land, but it was in the full vigor of manhood before St. Pat- 
rick or St. Andrew or St. Nicholas, or even St. George were 
born. The New England society was organized in 1805, at 
No. 6 State street, at the house of James Watson, who was 
its first president. Samuel Hopkins, who lived in upper Pearl 
r.treet, was the secretary, and in the notes it speaks of his 
troubles in reaching Watson's house that night with his tin 
lantern in his hand, as he was compelled to go round the 
swamp in order to avoid the high tides of Cedar and Pine 
streets. I notice here on your list of toasts the name of Presi- 
dent Dwight, of Yale College. That name runs like a thread 
of gold through all the history of the New England States. 
That name is synonymous with everything that is honored, 
manly, and cultured. That reminds me of the fact that on 
the first roll of the society appeared his name. \^Applause7\ 
He came over from New Haven for the purpose of organizing 
the society, after a quick voyage of two days " being favored 
by wind and tide." Trumbull, the painter, was one of the 
seven there assembled. They agreed to hold a public meet- 
ing at the City Hotel if they could find seventy New Eng- 
land people in the city. They succeeded in doing so, and 
have kept up the number ever since, and I can report to you 
that they are still increasing. Afterwards they held their 
meetings at the Tontine Coffee House, at Burdan's Long 
Room, Broad street, and would intersperse the speeches by 
singing " Hail Columbia," " Roslyn Castle," and " Anacreon 
in Heaven." The language of this first constitution was so 
chaste that 1 know you will pardon me a moment when I 
read the preamble : " We, whose names are herewith sub- 
scribed, convinced that it is the duty of all men to promote 
the happiness and welfare of each other, witnessing the ad- 
vantages which have arisen from the voluntary association of 
individuals allied to each other by a similarity of habits and 
education, and being desirous of diffusing and extending the 
like benefit, do hereby associate ourselves under the name of 
The New England Society of the City and State of New 
York." This sentiment not only expresses a kindly feeling of 



57 

the heart, but it was equally expressive of the New England 
idea of mutual dependence and of mutual equality, where 
these simple virtues flourished, and a stainless life was all 
there was of living. We had no landed gentry, but six 
square miles was granted by the General Court to a certain 
number of persons named in the grant who might enter upon 
it in company, reserving some common property for meeting- 
house, school, burial ground and minister's lot. So they lived 
their earnest, simple lives, an example to all the world, fulfill- 
ing the prayer of St. Pierre, the French essayist, who asked 
for his country neither wealth nor military glory, nor magnifi- 
cent palaces and monuments, nor splendor of Court nobility, 
nor clerical pomp. Rather, he says, " Oh, France, may no 
beggar tread thy plains, no sick or suffering man ask in vain 
for relief ; in all thy hamlets may every young woman find a 
husband, and every man a true wife ; may the young be 
trained aright and guarded from evil ; may the old close 
their days in the tranquil hope of those who love God and 
their fellowman." Such was the life, Mr. Chairman, our fore- 
fathers led, and the nearer we can come back to it, the nearer,. 
in my opinion, do we come to true living and all worthy 
effort. [^Applause.'] 

In behalf of the Society of the City of New York, I again 
thank you for your kind reception. {Applause ?\ 



President Winsloiv : — I will now call upon William Sullivan,, 
Esq., President of the St. Patrick's Society, to respond to the 
toast, " Our Sister Societies." {ApplanseP^ 

ADDRESS OF WILLIAM SULLIVAN, ESQ. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Society : 

In behalf of the St. Patrick's Society, I acknowledge the 
friendly courtesy of your invitation, and thank you for your 
fraternal welcome and genial hospitality. After listening to 
so many eloquent speeches recounting the achievements and 
extolling the virtues of your ancestors, one cannot help admir- 
ing the Yankee for his patriotism and pride of ancestry. He 



58 

has every reason to be proud of New England and of his 
ancestors, because New England is part of Ireland, by con- 
quest, by occupation, by amalgamation and by absorption. 
{^Laughter.'] It seems to me, however, Mr. President, that as 
every member of your Society is a native, or a descendant of 
a native, of New England, your historiographer is a sinecurist, 
for does not everybody now know where your Pilgrim fathers 
originally came from ? It was hardly worth while to spend 
over two hundred years in finding out where they were born, 
because their descendants were soon absorbed by the Irish, 
and it is an admitted historical fact that the Pilgrim father of 
the Irish was born in every country in Europe but Ireland. 
\_Laughta\'\ When St. Patrick became an Irishman, the Irish 
made up their minds to become a nation of doctors and of 
saints, and this accounts for their emigration to New England. 
The land of pork and beans and of pumpkin pie and dyspepsia 
had an irresistible attraction for the doctors ; and the result is 
that every Yankee has now a sound mind in a sound body. 
'lApplausc.'] And as for the saints, they were attracted thither 
by their belief in the doctrine of the Communion of Saints. 
Before the Irish came to New England it was a penal offense 
to refuse an office. What a change since then ! Now one 
^uns the risk of being convicted if he accepts an office. 
l^Latighter.'] 

But, Mr. President and gentlemen, seriously, allow me in 
conclusion to again thank you for the privilege of participating 
.in the commemoration of an event which has resulted in the 
establishment of the greatest and best Republic that has ever 
existed on the face of the earth. {Applause.'] 

President Winsloiv : — We will now sing the Doxology, and 
then be dismissed. 

(The company then rose and in conclusion sang :) 

" Praise God from whom all blessings flow, 
Praise Him all creatures here below, 
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host, 
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." 



PROCEEDINGS 

AT THE 

EIGHTH ANNUAL MEETING 

AND 

EIGHTH ANNUAL FESTIVAL 

OF 

THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY 

IN THE CITY OF BROOKLYN, 



Including an Address delivered before the Society, February 9, 1888, 

BY Hon. John L. Swift, of Boston, Massachusetts, 

ON " Miles Standish." 



OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, COUNCIL, MEMBERS, 
STANDING COMMITTEES, 

AND 

BY-LAWS OF THE SOCIETY. 



BROOKLYN. 

1888. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

Objects of the Society, .......... 3 

Terms of Membership, ......... 3 

Officers, ............. 4 

Directors, ............ 5 

Council, ............. 5 

Standing Committees, .......... 6 

Report of Eighth Annual Meeting, 7 

Proceedings at the Eighth Annual Dinner, I3 

Bill of Fare i6 

Address of President John Winslow i? 

Gen'l W. T. Sherman, 21 

" Gen'l Horace Porter, 26 

Rev. Timothy Dwight, D. D, LL.D., .... 30 

" Hon. Joseph R. Hawley, ...... 36 

Letter of Hon. George Hoadley, ....... 37 

Address of Rev. L. T. Chamberlain. D. D 38 

Hon. Alfred C. Chapin 46 

Hon. John W. Hunter, 53 

Certificate of Incorporation, ......... 67 

By-Laws, ............ 71 

Honorary Members, .......... 77 

Life Members, ........... 77 

Annual Members, ........... 78 

Meetings of Society, .......... 83 

Form of Bequest, ........... 83 



OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY. 



The New England Society in the City of Brooklyn is incorporated and 
organized to commemorate the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers ; to encourage 
the study of New England History ; to establish a library, and to promote 
charity, good fellowship and social intercourse among its members. 



TERMS OF MEMBERSHIP. 



Admission Fee, . - . . . $10.00 

Annual Dues, ...... 5.00 

Life Membership, /'fsid^s Admission Fee, - - 50.00 

Payable at election, except Annual Dues, -.iihich are payable in Januarv of each year. 

Any member of the Society in good standing may become a Life Member 
on paying to the Treasurer at one time the sum of fifty dollars ; and thereafter 
such member shall be exempt from further payment of dues. 

Any male person of good moral character, who is a native or descendant 
of a native of any of the New England States, and who is eighteen years old 
or more, is eligible. 

If in the judgment of the Board of Directors, they are in need of it, the 
widow or children of any deceased member shall receive from the funds of the 
Society, a sum equal to five times the amount such deceased member has paid 
to the Society. 

The friends of a deceased member are requested to give the Historiographer 
early information of the time and place of his birth and death, with brief inci- 
dents of his life, for publication in our annual report. Members who change 
their address should give the Secretary early notice. 

(J^*" It is desirable to have all worthy gentlemen of New England descent 
residing in Brooklyn, become members of the Society. Members are requested 
to send application of their friends for membership to the Secretary. 
Address, 

THOMAS S. MOORE, Recording Secretary, 

102 Broadway, New York. 



OFFICERS. 

1888. 



President: 
JOHN WINSLOW. 

First Vice-President: Second Vice-President. 

CALVIN E. PRATT. BENJ. F. TRACY. 



Treasurer : 
CHARLES N. MANCHESTER. 



Recording Secretary : Corresponding Secretary : 

THOMAS S. MOORE. WILLIAM H. WILLIAMS. 



Historiograplier : 
PAUL L. FORD. 



Librarian : 
CHARLES E. WEST, LL. D. 



DIRECTORS. 



William H. Lyon. 
William B. Kendall. 



Calvin E. Pratt. 
John Winslow. 



For One Year. 



J. S. Case. 



For TiDo Years. 



Joseph F. Knapp. 



Albert E. Lamb. 
Stewart L. Woodford. 



Ransom H. Thomas. 
Chas. N. Manchester. 



For Three Years. 
Benjamin F. Tracy. A. C. Barnes. 

Henry W. Slocum. George B. Abbott. 

Nelson G. Carman, Jr. 



For Four Years. 
Benjamin D. Sillima:;. Hiram W. Hunt. 

George H. Fisher. William H. Williams. 

Hknry E. Pierrepont. 



COUNCIL 



A. A. Low. 
A. M. White. 
S. B. Chittenden. 
A. F. Cross. 
Robert D. Benedict. 
Henry Coffin. 
Charles Pratt. 
C. L. Benedict. 
Thomas H. Rodman. 
Augustus Storrs. 



Arthur Mathewson. 
W. H. Nichols. 
Francis L. Hine. 
H. W. Maxwell. 
Seth Low. 
Isaac H. Cary. 
H. H. Wheeler. 
W. A. White. 
Darwin R. James. 
M. N. Packard. 



J. R. Cowing. 
F. A. Ward. 
John Claflin. 
M. W. Robinson. 
J. S. T. Stranahan. 
Willard Bartlett. 
L. S. Burnham. 
Henry Earl. 
Jasper W. Gilbert. 



STANDING COMMITTEES 



Finance : 
WiLTiAM H. Lyon, Geo. H. Fisher, 

Albert E. Lamb. 



Charity : 
Benjamin F. Tkacv, Henry W. Slocum, 

J. F. Knapi'. 



Invitations : 
Benjaman D. Sii.i.iman, John Winslow, 

SlEWART L. WOODKOKI). 



Annual Dinner : 

Hiram W. Hunt, Chas. N. Manchester, 

Ransom H. Thomas. 



Publications : 
Nelson G. Carman, ]k. William H. Williams. 

J. S. Case. 



Annual Receptions : 
President and Vice-Presidents. 



EIGHTH ANNUAL MEETING. 



The Eighth Annual Meeting of the New England Society, 
in the City of Brooklyn, was held in the Directors' Room 
of the Art Association Building, on Wednesday Evening, 
December 7, 1887. 

Mr. John Winslow, the President of the Society, called 
the meeting to order, and acted as Chairman. 

The minutes of the Seventh Annual Meeting, held Decem- 
ber I, 1886, were read and approved, 

Mr. Charles N. Manchetesr, Treasurer of the Society, 
presented his Annual Report, showing a balance on hand of 
$14,506.21, deposited in the following institutions: 

South Brooklyn Savings Institution $3, 139-50 

Brooklyn Savings Bank 3,135.00 

Dime Savings Bank , 3,150.00 

Williamsburgh Savings Bank...... 3,180.00 

Brooklyn Trust Co 901.71 

City Savings Bank 1,000.00 

$14,506.21 

which was on motion approved, and ordered to be placed on 
file. There was appended to the Treasurer's Report, a certifi- 
cate signed by the Finance Committee, that the same had 
been examined and found to be correct. 

The President read his Annual Report, which was as 
follows : 

the annual report of the president. 

The By-Laws provide that the President may make an An- 
nual Report touching the condition of the Society, as to its 



8 

membership and finances, and make such recommendations 
as he may deem proper. 

The Society has kept in view its declared purposes, which 
are to encourage the study of New England history, to estab- 
lish a library, to promote charity, good fellowship, and social 
intercourse among its members, and to commemorate the 
landing of the Pilgrim Fathers. 

The last Annual Dinner was a success, both as to the 
quality of the dinner and the brilliancy and high character of 
the speakers. That this was appreciated was obvious to all 
in attendance. The number present was larger than at any 
former dinner. The numerous applications for tickets to the 
next dinner gives assurance of a large attendance. 

The Society has sought to make this Annual Festival 
a notable event in Brooklyn, and its success in that respect is 
generally recognized. 

It is provided by Article 24 of the By-Laws, that if in the 
judgment of the Directors, they are in need of it, the widow 
or children of any deceased member shall receive from the 
funds of the Society, a sum equal to five times the amount 
such deceased member has paid to the Society. 

There have been several occasions when help in this man- 
ner has been given, under the direction of the Committee on 
Charities. 

The report of the Secretary shows the total member- 
ship to be four hundred. It is desirable to have the mem- 
bership increased. Let every member do what he can in this 
respect. 

The report of the Treasurer shows that there is in the 
Treasury at this date the sum of $14,506.21. Most of this sum 
is deposited in the five leading savings banks in the City of 
Brooklyn. This shows an increase of $1,266.26 for the year 
ending December 7, 1887. 

The Historiographer reports the death of seven members 
of the Society. They are as follows : 

John Webster Sedgwick was born in West Hartford, Conn., July 24, 
1831, and early in life came to New York, where he accepted a position in the 
jewelry business. He later went to Wilmington, N. C, where he resided for 
some years, but in 1864 returned to New^York, and formed a partnership 
with Stephen P. Cox, for the manufacture of jewelry, under the firm name of 
Cox & Sedgwick, at 26 John street, in which he continued till his death. For 
several years he was Vice-President of the Jewelers' Circular Publishing 
Company. 

In 1864 Mr. Sedgwick removed to Brooklyn, residing at 419 Clinton 
avenue, and has always taken an active interest in Brooklyn affairs. He 
attended the Church of the Messiah, was a member of the Oxford Club, and 



was greatly interested in our own Society, of which he was a regular at- 
tendant. 

His wife and two children survive him. He died April 20, 1887, in the 
fifty-sixth year of his age, and was buriedin Woodlawn Cemetery. 



Captain Nathaniel Putnam, son of Nathaniel Putnam, was born in 
Danvers, Mass., May 4, 1802. Receiving the education such as every New 
England lad of that time obtained, he entered his father's store in that town, 
but at nineteen went to sea before the mast and in but four or five years had 
worked his way up to the command of a vessel, in the employment of Oliphant 
& Co., engaged in the china trade. 

On his marriage with Abigail D. Putnam, January 9, 1844, Mr. Putnam 
left the sea and engaged in business as a member of the firm of O. H. Gordon 
& Co., at the same time taking up his residence in Brooklyn, in which he lived 
till his death. 

He died April 2, 1S86, in the eighty-fourth year of his age, and was buried 
in Greenwood. 

Joseph Howard Marvin was born in Brooklyn, March 17, 1853, and was 
educated at the Polytechnic Institute and Yale College ('76) where he took a 
Townsend prize. In 1878 he graduated from the Columbia College Law 
School, and was in the law offices of Mr. Benjamin Silliman, with Sherman & 
Sterling, and with Betts, Atterbury & Betts, his specialty being patent 
law. 

He died August 26th, 18S7, in the thirty-fifth year of his age. 



' William P. Libby was born in Tuftonborough, N. H., May Sth, 1S17. 
At twelve years of age he left his native town and worked in Dover, N. H., 
in Whitehall, N. Y., and later, came to New York city, from which he soon 
removed to Brooklyn, where he spent the latter part of his life. 

Mr. Libby was greatly interested in Brooklyn schools, and was one of 
the members of the Board of Education for several years. He was a mem- 
of the South Congregational Church, and was for many years President of 
the Citizens' Gas Light Company, and was connected with several of our 
moneyed institutions. 

He died July 3d, 1886, in the seventieth year of his age. 



Richard H. Manning was born in Ipswich, Mass., February i, iSog, 
and was educated in his native town and at the famous Summer Academy in 
Byfield, Mass., the leading school, at that time, in New England. 

He started in business as a young man, in the drygoods trade in Phila- 
delphia, but left that city in 1840 and came to New York, where he became 
interested in mining enterprises and in the manufacture of zinc paint, being 
the senior partner in the firm of Manning & Squire, engaged in that business 
in Liberty street. In 1882 he retired from all active business. 



10 

Mr. Manning came to Brooklyn in 1867, residing at 305 Clinton avenue, 
and has always been actively interested in the affairs of the city, especially in 
her charities and public institutions. He was early identified with the Uni- 
tarian denomination, and was one of the founders of the Second Unitarian 
Church in this city. An old-time abolitionist and a Civil Service reformer, 
a lover of science and art. as well as deeply interested in Fourierism and 
other social questions. Mr. Manning enjoyed the friendship of many able 
men, among them, the late Professor Youmans and Horace Greeley, of whom 
he was the executor. 

His wife and four children survive him. He died November 2, 1887, in 
the seventy-ninth year of his age, and was buried in Greenwood Cemetery. 

Harry Eugene Dodge, son of Edward and Caroline Perkins (Alden) 
Dodge, pi Providence, R. I., was born in Philadelphia, Pa., on January 14, 
1844. From childhood he was a resident of Brooklyn, and was educated at 
the Polytechnic Institute. 

At an early age he entered the banking house of Clark, Dodge & Co., of 
which his father was a partner, and in 1867 became a member of the firm, in 
which he continued to the day of his death, being for some years the active 
member of the firm. In 1866 he had become a member of the New York 
Stock Exchange, being elected by the largest vote ever cast, up to that time, 
for any candidate. 

Mr. Dodge was prominent in yachting circles as the owner of the yacht 
Triton, and was a member of the Atlantic Yacht Club, of which he was at 
one time Vice Commodore. For several years he was respectively Treas- 
urer and Secretary of the Brooklyn Club. 

On October 8th, 1866, he married Jeannie M. Hall, by whom he had 
two children. His son Edward survives him. 

He died June 3, 1887, in the forty-fourth year of his age, and was 
buried in Greenwood Cemetery. 

William Kent, son of Ruggles and Achsah Bliss Kent, was born in 
West Springfield, Mass.. September 30, 1817. Educated in his native town 
and in Hartford, he early in life came to New York, and by his energy and 
ability was shortly able to establish, in connection with Wellington Clapp, 
the firm of Clapp & Kent, which by the addition of Samuel Beckley became 
Clapp, Beckley & Kent, one of the leading drygoods houses before the war. 

On the dissolution of the firm, Mr. Kent accepted a position of great 
responsibility in the Appraiser's office of the New York Custom House, a 
situation for which he was peculiarly fitted by his long business career, and 
which he filled till the day of his death. 

Mr. Kent was an old resident of Brooklyn, living first on the Heights and 
later on the Hill. He was one of the founders of the Brooklyn Club, of which 
he was a prominent member. 

In 1S42 he married Hannah Chandler Ely, of West Springfield, Mass. 
Four daughters and a son survive him. He died October 28, 1887, in the 
seventy-second year of his age. 



II 

By a recent vote of the Directors the sum of two hundred 
and fifty dollars has been contributed to the fund for the 
National Monument at Plymouth, Mass. This monument 
was begun about thirty years ago, is now nearly completed 
and is a noble work. I was present when the corner stone 
was laid and the occasion was a notable one. A large tent 
was erected protecting some 10,000 persons, and the people 
gathered from many parts of New England, and not a few from 
distant parts of the country. General Banks was the orator 
of the day. In the afternoon there were distinguished speak- 
ers, who addressed the people under the tent, including the late 
Chief Justice Chase, the Governors of several States, and 
others. 

The total cost of the monument will be $110,000. Most 
of this sum has been contributed by the sons and daughters 
of New England throughout the country. The State of 
Massachusetts has contributed $10,000 to the Statue of Mo- 
rality; Connecticut, $3,000 for the panel representing the 
embarkation, and Congress, by a recent appropriation, $13, 
500 for the Statue of Liberty and the panel representing the 
landing. The New England Society in the City of New 
York has contributed $1,500, and the Society in Philadel- 
phia $500. It is expected the grounds will be graded by the 
Town of Plymouth, and the whole work will be completed in 
June, 1888. The balance, $3,000, needed for the monument, 
will be given by the Pilgrim Society in Plymouth. 

Our action in contributing to the fund is in harmony with 
the declared purposes of our Society, some of which are to 
promote the study of New England history, and to per- 
petuate the memory of the Pilgrim Fathers. 

Thus will stand upon an eminence in Plymouth, a grand 
historical monument that may be seen in an extended region, 
including a distant point on the bleak sea, where the Fathers 
first saw Plymouth, and which will be forever associated with 
their sufferings and their work. 

John Winslow, President. 
Dated December 7, 1887. 

On motion this report was accepted, and ordered to be 
spread upon the minutes, and to be published in the annual 
report. 

The terms of Messrs. Benjamin D. Silliman, George H. 
Fisher, Hiram W. Hunt, William H. Williams and Henry E. 



12 



Pierrepont, as Directors, having expired, the Society pro- 
ceeded to elect by ballot five directors, to hold office for 
four years ; Messrs. Benjamin D. Silliman, George H. Fisher, 
Hiram W. Hunt, William H. Williams, and Henry E. Pierre- 
pont, were elected, and their election duly declared by the 
chairman. 



The meeting then adjourned. 



THOMAS S. MOORE, 

Recording Secretary. 



PROCEEDINGS AND SPEECHES 

AT THE 

EIGHTH ANNUAL DINNER, 

Wednesday, December 21, 1887, 

In conimemoration of the Tivo Hundred and Sixty-seventh 
A miiversary of the Landing of the Pilgrims. 



The Eighth Annual Dinner of the New England Society 
in the City of Brooklyn, was held in the Assembly Rooms of 
the Academy of Music, and in the Art Room adjoining, on 
Wednesday evening, December 21, 1887. 

The reception was held in the Art Room, and at six 
o'clock the dinner was served. 

Over three hundred gentlemen were seated at the tables. 

The President, HON. JOHN WiNSLOW, presided. 

Upon his right sat Gen. WiLLiAM T. Sherman, Hon. 
Joseph R. Hawley, Hon. Alfred C. Chapin, Hon. John 
W. Hunter, Hon. Wm. H. Murtha. 

On the left of the President sat Rev. Dr. Timothy 
Dwight, Hon. Benj. D. Silliman, Gen. Horace Porter, 
Rev. Dr. L. T. Chamberlain, Rev. Dr. F. A. Farley, 
Hon. D. D. Whtney. 



14 

The members of the Society were seated as follows: 

Table A.— William H. Nichols, G. M. Luther, R. B. Van Vleck, R. B. 
Hinman, Sandford H. Steele, George S. Small, George A. Evans, J. T. Bald- 
win, Pascal C. Burke, Wm. C. Wallace, James E. Dean, John A. Nichols, 
R. S. Roberts, Henry D. Hotchkiss, B. H. Knapp, David Barnett, John E. 
Jacobs, Henry Elliott, Albert Ammerman, George W. Almy, Benj. Barra- 
clough, A. R. Jarrett, Warren S. Sillcocks, S. H. Cornell, Horace H. Stevens, 
N. Townsend Thayer, Edwin C. Moffat, W. H. H. Childs, Samuel S. Beard, 
Chas. H. Brush, J. C. Hoagland, Geo. F. Gregory, Wm. J. Coombs, A. 
Sanger. 

Table B. — Charles N. Manchester, H. B. Moore, John T. Van Sickle, 
A. de Riesthal, Edward F. Gaylor, James E. Hayes, D. Seymour Willard, 
Robert Christie, Silas Condict. Chas. N. Chadwick, F. H. Lovell, C. B. 
Davenport, George G. Brooks, Seelye Benedict, D. M. Somers, Edward T. 
Hunt, John L. How, Nelson G, Carman, Jr., H. H. Wheeler, Isaac H. Cary, 
Franklin Allen, Chas. L. Fincke, H. D. Polhemus, A. C. Woodruff, E. B. 
Bartlett, A. J. G. Hodenpyl, A. W. Newell, Leonard Richardson, L M. Bon, 
Geo. A. Boynton, George C. Bradley, Warren E. Hill, Chas. M. Clarke, Joel 
W. Hyde. 

Table C. — Hiram W. Hunt, George W. Hunt, Henry W. Slocum, Jr., 
John A. Tweedy, Walter S. Badger, Chas. A. Hoyt, Albert S. Hoyt, Edwin A. 
Lewis, L. S. Burnham, Hugh Boyd, James H. Race, J. T. Marean, D. A. 
Hulett, A. R. Gray, L. V. D. Hardenbergh, Chas. M. Stafford, James W. 
Ridgway, N. H. Clement, Aug. Van Wyck, Almet F. Jenks, William Hester, 
C. F. Lawrence, W. B. Wilkins, John F. Owings, Darwin R. James, M. N, 
Packard, E. P. Goodwin, Stephen Condit, Wm. C. De Witt, James W. Smith, 
Henry W. Slocum, Calvin E. Pratt, W. B. Dowd. 

Table D. — James S. Case, C. A. Moore, Henry W. Maxwell, Geo. W. 
Ale.xander, Edward C. Kimball, Ira A. Kimball, John S. James, Reuben W, 
Ropes, W. E. Wheelock, A. D. Wheelock, A. I. Ormsbee, James J. Ormsbee, 
Henry W. Knight, George A. Price, R. N. Denison, George L. Morse, A. G, 
Jennings, O. T. Jennings, H. A. Tucker, Jr., H. A. Tucker, Rodney C. 
Ward, J. A. McMicken, W. H. Perry, E. D. Burt, W. Edwin Thorp, S. W. 
Johnson, Henry R. Heath, Frank Squier, Reuben Leland, D. P. Templeton, 
W. W. Wickes, W. W. Rossiter, E. L. Maxwell. 

Table E. — William H. Waring, Samuel Winslow, William Coit, Geo. H. 
Prentiss, J. N. Kalley, Wm. H. Taylor, Calvin Patterson, Leonard Dunkley, 
Wm. D. Cornell, Sidney V. Lowell, Wm. Sullivan, H. S. Stewart, Albert 
Woodruff, James P. Wallace, S. E. Howard, Chas. H. Parsons, James S. 
Bailey, C. H. Requa, James Brady, C. A. Denny, H. C. Hulbert, E. F. 
Beadle, William Adams, Nelson J. Gates, A. H. Topping, A. F. Cross, 
William T. Cross, E. H. Kellogg, G. S. Hutchinson, Wm. G. Creamer. 
;Edwin Atkins, C. P. Dixon, William D. Wade. 



15 

Table F. — Henry E. Pierrepont, Jasper W. Gilbert, A. M. White, Thos. 
S. Moore. F. A. Ward, W. A. White, Ripley Ropes, E. F. Knowlton, E. H. 
Litchfield, W. S. Perry, F. L. Babbitt, Charles Pratt, John Gibb, Bryan H, 
Smith, J. G. Johnson, Thomas E. Pearsall, J. P. Adams, Gordon L. Ford, 
Wm. B. Leonard, W. T. Hatch, A. E. Orr, Chas. J. Lowrey, C. M. Pratt, 
F, B. Pratt, W. O. Pratt, A. T. White, Seth Low, John A. Taylor, Geo. F. 
Peabody. E. M. Shepard, David A. Boody, John B. Woodward, J. S. T. 
Stranahan. 

Table G. — Stewart L. Woodford, John M. Crane, George L. Pease, John 
T. Sherman, F. L. Wheeler, H. W. Wheeler, Lewis A. Parsons, F. E, Par- 
sons, John F. Henry, George J. Laighton, C. S. Van Wagoner, A. J. Perry, 
Albert G. McDonald, Wm. H. Williams, Charles W. Ide. M. W. Robinson, 
George G. Reynolds, Benjamin F. Tracy, Andrew D. Baird, Frank Sperry, 
Augustus Storrs, O. A. Gager, Benjamin Estes, Eugene F. O'Connor, Jesse 
Johnson, John B. Greene, Henry E. Townsend, Ethan Allen Doty, C. S. 
Brainerd, Geo. C. Brainerd, N. T. Sprague, H. H. Beadle, Thos. S. Thorp, 
James H. Thorp. 

Table H.— Joseph F. Knapp, Silas B. Dutcher, E. R. Kennedy, W. H. B. Pratt, 
Lowell M. Palmer, Anthony H. Creagh, C. Mortimer Wiske, H. Clay Swain, 
Samuel S. Utter, Wm. L Preston, James H. Redman, John J. Coger, John E. 
Dwight, M. Everett Dwight, Elihu Dwight, James A. Sperry, Wm. C. Bryant, 
George H. Fisher, Rev. Dr. N. Maynard, Daniel L. Northup, Rufus L. Scott, 
Geo. M. Nichols, Wm. J. Walker, Wm. B. Hurd, E. C. Wadsworth, Joseph 
Applegate, F. S. Driscoll, Warren E. Smith, Ed. C. Wallace, A. L. Bassett, 
W. L. M. Fiske, Joseph K. Hegeman, John R. Hegeman, Alonzo Slote. 

Table L— Wm. H. Lyon, J, B. Elliott, Marvin T. Lyon, Wm. A. Taylor, 
New York Tribune, New York Herald, New York World, Standard-Union, 
Brooklyn Eagle, Brooklyn Times, Brooklyn Citizen, New York Sun, New 
York Times, Wm. T. Lawrence, F. E. Taylor, Wm. H. Lyon, Jr. 



i6 



BILL OF FARE. 



Oysters. 

SOUPS. 

Broth Charmel, Green Turtle. 

SIDE DISHES. 

Celery. Olives. Radishes. 

Timbales, perigord fashion. 

FISH. 
Salmon, Parisian style. Fried Smelts. 

Potatoes persillade. 

JOINT. 

Filet of Beef, stuffed Olives. 
Brussels Sprouts. 

ENTREES. 

Braised Capons, Chevreuse fashion. 

French Peas. 

Sweetbread, Montebello, 

Kidney Beans. 

Terrapin, Baltimore style. 

Punch: Imperial. 



GAME. 
Canvas-back Duck. Quails. 

COLD. 

Goose Liver pate with Truffles. 
Lettuce Salad. 

SWEETS. 

Plum Pudding with Rum. 
Pistachio Jelly, Oriental fashion. Vanilla Charlotte. 

PYRAMIDS. 

Assorted Fancy Ices. 
Fruits. Mixed Cakes. 

Coffee. 



17 

When the company had assembled at the tables, Rev. F. 
A. Farley, D. D., pronounced the following grace : 

Almighty God, our ears have heard, and our fathers have 
told us of the works that Thou didst for them in the olden 
time ; and we, the children of that blessed stock, are here 
before Thee, to call them to remembrance ; to speak their 
praises ; to take lessons from their career, and to do what we 
may in our day and generation to carry out the great objects 
which led them to this land, which governed them in its resi- 
dence, and made them a name and a place among the nations 
of the earth. 

O, God, we recognize our growth from them under the lov- 
ing guidance of Thine all wise providence, to the great stature 
of our day, and the blessed institutions which make it glori- 
ous. May we, as grateful children of the fathers of old, and 
children of Thee the most high God, from whom cometh 
every good and perfect gift, go forth to do Thy will and to 
praise and bless Thee all our days ; ascribing to Thee all our 
public and private blessings ; looking unto Thee for forgive- 
ness for all our shortcomings and sins, and endeavoring, under 
the guidance of our blessed gospel, the Gospel of the Lord 
Jesus Christ, to be worthy the name we profess. 

Hear us, forgive us, and accept us, in the name of Christ 
our Redeemer. Amen. 

ADDRESS OF HON. JOHN WINSLOW, THE PRESI- 
DENT OF THE SOCIETY. 

Gentlemen of the New England Society of the City of Brooklyn, 
Guests and Friends : 

This is the eighth anniversary of our society and the 267th 
of the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers. It will please you all 
to learn of the continued growth and prosperity of our society. 
There is in our treasury the sum of $14,506.21, and no debts. 
[A/>plause.] This shows an increase of $1,266.26 over last 
year. As occasion requires this money is used for charitable 
purposes and in other useful ways, as provided by our by-laws. 
Such a gathering as we have here to-night is an inspiration. 
It must be especially so to the distinguished gentlemen, 
our guests, who will address you. So it comes to pass that 
you are to have to-night the advantage of listening to inspired 
men — an advantage not uncommon in the days of the pro- 



phets, but rare in our times. [^Laughter and applause.'] It is 
proper and agreeable to us all just here and now to recognize 
as with us our friend and benefactor and president emeritus, 
the Hon. Benjamin D. Silliman. [A voice : "Three cheers for 
that grand old man." The company rising gave rousing 
cheers.] He is with us with a young heart and a cheerful 
mind, and continues to be what he has been from the begin- 
ning — a loyal and devoted friend of our society. [Applause.] 
We are here this evening enjoying the sufferings of our Pil- 
grim Fathers. [Aferrimenf.] Their heroic work takes in 
Plymouth Rock, ours takes in the Saddle Rock. They en- 
joyed game of their own shooting, we enjoy game of other's 
shooting ; they drank cold water, because they could no longer 
get Holland beer. The fact that they must give up Dutch 
beer was one of the considerations (so we are told by one of 
their Governors) that made them loth to leave Leyden. 
[Laughter.'] We drink cold water because we want it and like 
it. The Pilgrim Fathers went to church armed with 
muskets ; we go to church with our minds stuffed and 
demoralized by the contents of Sunday morning news- 
papers. [Laughter.] The Pilgrim mothers went to church 
dressed in simple attire, because they could afford noth- 
ing elaborate and because they thought they could better 
catch and hold the devotional spirit. The Pilgrim mothers 
of our day' go to church with costly toilets, because they 
can afford it, and are quite willing to take the chances 
as to catching and holding the aforesaid spirit. [Laughter.'] 
The Pilgrim Fathers, when they made the compact on the 
Mayflower, planted the seeds of constitutional freedom ; 
we, their worthy sons, commemorate their work ; try to 
perpetuate it and enjoy the fruits thereof. It is sometimes 
said the Pilgrims were a solemn people ; that they were 
not cheerful. Well, in their severe experience in England 
and Holland and at Plymouth, there was much to make a 
born optimist grave and thoughtful. But it is a mistake 
to suppose that they could not rejoice with those who re- 
joiced as well as weep with those who wept. Take, for in- 
stance, the first Thanksgiving festival held by the Pilgrims. 
The quaint account of this by one of their governors is always 



19 

interesting. This first American Thanksgiving took place at 
Plymouth in 1621, only about ten months after the landing. 
It was like a Jewish festival continuing out of doors for a 
week. The Pilgrim writer, Governor Winslow, describes it 
thus : " Our harvest being gotten in, our Governor (meaning 
Governor Bradford) sent four men out fowling, so that we 
might, after a special manner (meaning doubtless a gay and 
festive manner) rejoice together after (not counting chickens 
before they were hatched) we had gathered the fruit of our 
labors." Now, listen to this: "They killed in one day so 
much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company 
almost a week." What this "little help beside" was not 
stated. In our day it would mean that the hunter and 
the fisherman made heavy drafts upon Fulton Market for 
meat, fowl and fish, to supply what was short. " At which 
time," says the writer, " among other recreations, we ex- 
ercised our arms " — this probably means they shot at a 
mark \laughter\ — " many of the Indians coming among us" 
— they were not the mark, at least this time — " and 
among the rest, their greatest king, Massasoit, with some 
ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and 
feasted." Think of that; feasting ninety Indian three days 
and the whole colony beside. What New England Society 
has ever made so good a showing of hospitality and good 
cheer? [Latighter.l^ "And they" (the ninety Indians), 
"went out and killed five deer." Now, I submit, we have 
here a clear case of the application of the great principle of 
honest, even-handed co-operation, no modern device in that 
line could surpass it. It is true the Indians were not an in- 
corporated society, and so there was no receiver appointed 
to wind them up. [Laughter.] " Which they brought," says 
the writer, "to the plantation and bestowed on our Gov- 
ernor " (meaning Governor Bradford), " our captain and 
others." Governor Bradford, in speaking of this, tells us 
that among the fowl brought in " was a great store of 
turkeys." Thus begins the sad history in this country 
of the rise and annual fall on Thanksgiving days of that 
exalted biped— the American turkey. After this description 
of a Pilgrim festival day who shall ever again say the 



20 

Pilgrims could not be merry if they had half a chance to 
be so. Why, if the Harvard and Yale base-ball clubs had 
been on hand with their great national game of banging each 
others' eyes and breaking bones promiscuously, they could not 
have added to the spirit of the day though they might to its 
variety of pastime. [^Langhter.'] It is interesting to remem- 
ber in this connection that in the earlier years of the colonies. 
Thanksgiving Day did not come every year. It came at vari- 
ous periods of the }'ear from May to December, and the inter- 
vals between them sometimes four or five years, gradually 
shortened and then finally settled into an annual festival on 
the last Thursday of November. A few years ago two Gov- 
ernors of Maine ventured to appoint a day in December for 
Thanksgiving. Neither of them was re-elected. \Laughter?[ 
The crowning step in this development, which is now national, 
was when the fortunes of our late war were in favor of the 
Union, and a proclamation for a national Thanksgiving was 
issued by our then President, dear old Abraham Lincoln, 
\Applause^^ That the festival shall hereafter and forever be 
national is a part of our unwritten law. {Applause.^ It will 
thus be seen that we, the sons of the Pilgrims, may fairly and 
modestly claim that this feature of our national life, like most 
of the others that are valuable, proceeded directly from Ply- 
mouth Rock. The New England Society in the City of 
Brooklyn, will ever honor the work and the memory of the 
fathers. As in the sweet lines of Bryant : 

" Till where the sun, with softer fires, 
Looks on the vast Pacific's sleep, 
The children of the Pilgrim sires 

This hallowed day, like us. shall keep." 

\General applause?^ 

You will now please rise in your places and drink to 
"THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES." 
(The toast was drunk standing, followed by applause.) 



21 

The first regular toast is : 
"A CORDIAL WELCOME TO GEN. SHERMAN." 

The Chairman : You may think it a very easy matter for 
the presiding officer to introduce so distinguished a man as 
General Sherman, yet I feel a good deal as Daniel Webster 
must have felt at the Bunker Hill Monument celebration, 
when, gazing upon it, he exclaimed : " There it stands! Here 
it is !" And, so I say: "There he stands! Here he is!" 
[Great cheer ing.'\ 

ADDRESS OF GENERAL WILLIAM T. SHERMAN. 

Gentlemen of the Nezv England Society of Brooklyn .-—I 
think I am sensible of the honor which you have conferred 
upon me to-night. To be so recognized is a pleasure and an 
honor conjoined, and being on my feet I will endeavor to 
recognize the compliment as far as I may without taxing your 
patience. Your ancestors, my young friends, were not idle 
during the i6o years which preceded the peace after our Rev- 
olution. The last battle of that war was at Yorktown, Octo- 
ber 19th, 1781, but it was not till January, 1783, that Wash- 
ington could recommend the disbanding of his armies, lest 
some slip might occur ; and it was not till June of that year 
that he announced to the Army that finally a treaty of peace 
had been concluded with Great Britain, whereby the Inde- 
pendence of the United States of America had been acknowl- 
edged, and her boundaries extended to the Mississippi River. 
Permit me, without treading upon Governor Hoadley's toast, 
" New England in the West," to call the attention of some 
here present to the early times in the West, of the deeds done 
by pure Yankees of as good stuff and material as came across 
in the Mayflower. When the Army assembled at various 
points, especially at New Windsor and Newburg, were seeking 
their discharges, about to depart with two years' pay due 
them and the resolutions of Congress unheeded, they cast 
about for new homes ; and a petition went up to Congress 
signed by 282 names, of which 232 were from New England, 



22 

36 from New Jersey, 13 from Maryland, and i from New 
York, asking that they might invest their soldiers' certificates, 
worth 12^ cents on the dollar, in lands west of the Ohio River. 
Congress had as yet an incohate title to that property. It was 
to that land that the men of New England asked the Govern- 
ment to allow them to go and make new homes for themselves 
to replace those which they had abandoned to join the Revo- 
lutionary Army, in which they had served eight long years. 
At first Congress endeavored to divide that Territory in ten 
States. It may interest you to know the names of some of 
them. (To General Hawley), I suppose you know them. Sena- 
tor Hawley. {^Laiightcr?^ But a Committee of Congress, of 
which Jefferson was the head, suggested dividing that country 
into three ranges of States by parallels of longitude, passing 
through the mouth of the Big Kanawah, and, I think, through 
the Falls of the Ohio, what is now Louisville. The States 
proposed were, first, the one away up in the North West, 
Sylvania ; then came Michigania, Assenissipi, Metropotamia, 
Illinoia, Saratoga, Washington and Polyptamia. Fortunately 
these names were not adopted by Congress, otherwise some of 
us would not have been born in Ohio. 

From that historic camp at Newburg, went forth a petition 
to Washington, with a letter of Gen. Rufus Putnam, not old 
Israel Putnam, but a General, a man of superior intelligence, 
and a simon pure Yankee from Worcester, Mass. Associated 
with him was another General named Tupper, and still an- 
other by the name of Cutler: Rev. Manasseh Cutler, an Army 
Chaplain. Now, my friends, Congress was then overwhelmed 
with business, as it is now, \Latighter\ and could give very lit- 
tle heed to the complaints of the poor suffering ofificers and 
soldiers. But these urged their petition, and Washinton en- 
dorsed it with all his force and love for his old comrades. 
Congress yielded but little, and finally Tupper went on to 
New York, then the Capitol, or at least where Congress was 
sitting. But he could make no impression, and finally the 
Rev. Manasseh Cutler was sent, and he was a man of strong 
character. He tells in his own journal, recently published in 
Cincinnati, that he saddled his horse and rode first to Boston, 
to confer with some of his companions, and get letters of in- 



23 

troduction to Members of Congress, whom he had never seen. 
He then went to the University, and there got other letters. He 
rode on to Middleburg, Conn., where he found General Parsons, 
also a Revolutionary soldier associated with them in this enter- 
prise of founding a new State on the Ohio River, and so on, 
to New York. Here he came, as he says, by a road which 
came into the Bowery, put up his horse at the " Plough and 
Harrow," and then sauntered forth to deliver his letters, of 
which he had about fifty, addressed to different members of 
Congress, mostly the Southern members. He submitted his 
proposition to purchase 1,500,000 acres of land northwest of 
the Ohio River, to pay for it in $1,000,000 of soldiers' scrip. 
Congress veered and hauled, modified and amended, but Cutler 
stuck to it. He insisted upon having one section of each 
township for a school, another for churches, and an allowance 
for waste land in the Whortleberry hills which abounded in 
that country. He had to stipulate that St. Clair should be 
Governor, to him then a stranger, presiding over the Contin- 
ental Congress ; also to include the Scioto purchase in which 
many members of Congress were interested, which turned out 
to be a perfect Credit Mobilier, as bad as that of recent date. 
He succeeded at last in making his purchase, and went 
back by the same way he had come, sending the glad tidings 
of joy ahead ; and all the old soldiers felt encouraged that at 
last they could go into the unknown wilderness, and build up 
new homes, in place of those which they had sacrificed in 
good old New England. The first detachment landed at the 
mouth of the Muskingum, on the 7th of April, 1788; and 
the people of Ohio are going to celebrate that Centennial this 
year; and now look out for others right along. The first one 
will be on the 7th of April next. The next Winter, 1788, our 
friend Manasseh Cutler followed, and he placarded his wagon 
all the way out, " For Marietta, on the Ohio." It was driven 
over the mountains. And on his way down to Marietta he 
devised the first screw propeller ; long before anybody ever 
heard of Ericson ; he made a screw of wood turned it with a 
windlass, and propelled his boat down the Ohio River and 
joined the others. Then the Indian wars broke out, worse 
than any old Peter Parley has told us of in your old Plymouth 



24 

Rock settlement. These lasted five years, from 1790 to 1795, 
in which the Wyandottes, Delawares, Shawnees and others 
participated. Harmar was defeated in 179O, St. Clair in 1791. 
But their men were largely of Yankee stock, and they carried 
their Yankee pluck with them. Finally old Anthony Wayne 
went to work, and the newspapers raised the same stories 
about him that they did about McClellan, " On to Richmond !" 
and " What are you waiting for ?" and so on, and so on. But 
old Anthony waited till he was ready ; it was two years before 
he got ready, but when he did, he went to work and cleaned 
out those Indians good, and thenceforth and forever peace 
reigned in Ohio. The Yankees then having full scope, throve 
and prospered ; and bearing in mind the original purpose of 
carrying Civilization and Education with them, Commission- 
ers went up the Hockhocking (my own creek, where I was 
born), poling and paddling their canoes. And their provisions 
consisted of 800 pounds of salt pork, usually called " Mid- 
dling," what we in the army called in our late war " Sow 
Belly," 1,200 pounds of flour, 3 bushels of beans, and 40 gal- 
lons of whiskey. That whiskey carried them up to Athens, 
and then they laid the foundation of the first University es- 
tablished West and North of the Ohio River. The boat by 
which they ascended the river was called the Mayfloivcr. I 
guess that was the real Mayflower after all. Now, my friends, 
from that time on until the Yankee stood on the Pacific coast, 
I, myself, have seen the country grow. New Englanders, of 
course, in the lead, Pennsylvanians, Virginians, Carolinians 
and others co-operating. First Indiana, then Illinois, Mis- 
souri, away to the Pacific, where I was a pioneer ; and I be- 
lieve that I am one of the oldest pioneers of California still 
living. 

There is a little circumstance about which I hope I may 
not be misunderstood. In 1861 there was a war in this coun- 
try, a very considerable war. We first depended upon volun- 
teers, and God knows how I love those volunteers who first 
stepped forward. [CJiecrs?^ But in the Spring of 1863, vol- 
unteering fell off very fast. You had to pay bounties of $600 
and $1,000 per man, and finally Congress took it into her own 
hands to enlist men, to enforce enlistment, to enforce a draft. 



25 

In order to ascertain who should be drawn, or what propor- 
tion of the inhabitants should be drawn, it was necessary to 
ascertain, of those people capable of bearing arms, what was 
already in the field, counting by States. I have here a list, 
and I hope you will pardon me for reading it, because I want 
to deduce the moral. When they first commenced the draft 
in 1863, there was a credit and debit list of each State care- 
fully prepared in the War Department, and I will read you 
how it stood: Connecticut was 1,784 behind; Delaware, 473 
behind; Illinois, 60,171 ahead; Indiana, 25,511 ahead; Iowa, 
13,897 ahead ; Kansas and Kentucky not determined; Maine. 
2,892 behind; Maryland, 13,302 behind ; Massachusetts, 5,851 
behind; Michigan, 5,238 ahead; Missouri, not determined; 
Minnesota, 2,535 ahead ; New Hampshire, 388 behind ; New 
Jersey, 12,503 behind; New York, 5,517 ahead; Ohio, 28,429 
ahead; Pennsylvania, 15,407 behind; Rhode Island, 1,198 
ahead ; Tennessee, not determined ; Vermont, quota full ; 
West Virginia, 3,373 behind ; Wisconsin, 3,578 ahead. If 
you will scan this list, you will see that the New Eng- 
land of the West — that newer New England, as it might 
be called, even as old England is sometimes called " Greater 
Britain " — was the largest factor in the earliest years of our 
Civil War. And it may be that you gentlemen owe in a 
measure to them the fact that the armies which we needed 
then so much, the pure volunteers, the men who went for the 
love of the thing and for love of their country, came largely 
from that country which you and your fathers got in 1787 by 
the act passed by Congress that year, followed up by the noblest 
of the sons of New England, who, after the Revolutionary War, 
migrated to that then far off region, many of w^iose sons have 
fought the good fight of Civilization, and some of their de- 
scendants have led those armies to glory and to victory. Don't 
consider me as drawing parallels or comparisons, which are al- 
ways odorous \LangJitcr\ but I claim that the West in 1861 was 
the living embodiment of the principles of our forefathers, the 
principle of standing up for one's country and fighting at the 
first call, just as they did in Massachusetts in 1620, and on. 
You, of course, and all of us, now enjoy the fruits of that war; 
and I hope that whilst you bear in loving kindly memory your 



26 

New England of the East, and your good ancestors, true as 
steel, you will not forget the newer New England of the West. 
\Prolonged cJicering7\ 



The Chairvian : — The next regular toast is 

"THE CITIZEN SOLDIER." 

I have already referred to the embarrassment which a pre- 
siding ofificer feels in introducing a well-known and distinguished 
man. If I refer to the distinguished gentleman who is to re- 
spond to this toast as a pathetic speaker, you will immediately 
recall some of his fine humor; and if I should speak of him as 
a humorous speaker you will recall some pathetic sentence ; so 
it is better to let Gen. Horace Porter speak for himself. 
\Cheers^ 

ADDRESS OF GEN. HORACE PORTER. 

Mr. President and Gentlevien : — After General Sherman the 
deluge. I am the deluge. It is fortunate for me this evening 
that I come after General Sherman only in the order of speech, 
and not in the order of dinner, for a person once said in 
Georgia — and he was a man who knew regarding the March to 
the Sea — that any one who came after General Sherman 
wouldn't find much to eat. [Laughter.'] Having been brought 
up in Pennsylvania, I listened with great interest to General 
Sherman's reference to the proposed names of the States in 
the country. He mentioned one as " Sylvania." That was 
evidently a dead letter till we put the Pen(n) to it. \_La7ightcr.'] 
I noticed that President Dwight listened with equal interest to 
the statement of that expedition which went West and carried 
such a large quantity of whiskey with it, in consequence of 
which the first University was founded. [Laughter.'] But, 
gentlemen, when I am requested in such an august presence as 
this to speak of the " Citizen Soldier," I cannot help feeling 
like the citizen soldier of Hibernian extraction who came up, 
in the streets of New York, to a general ofificer and held out 



27 

his hand for alms, evidently wanting to put himself temporarily 
on the general's pay-roll, as it were. The general said : " Why 
don't you work?" He said he couldn't on account of his 
wounds. The general asked where he was wounded. He said, 
" In the retrate at Bull Run." '^ But whereabouts on your per- 
son ?" He replied, " You'll notice the scar here." (Pointing to 
his face.) " Now, how could you get wounded in the face 
while on the retreat ?" " I had the indiscrition to look back." 
{^Laughter:] " Well," said the general, " that wouldn't prevent 
your working." ''Ah," answered the man, "the worst wound 
is here." (Left breast.) The general said, "Oh, that's all 
bosh ; if the bullet had gone in there it would have passed 
through your heart and killed you." " I beg your pardon, sir, 
at that moment me heart was in me mouth !" [Great laughter?^ 
So if I had known that such an early attack was to be made upon 
me here to-night, I should have thrown my pickets farther out 
to the front, in hopes of getting sufificient information to beat a 
hasty retreat ; for if there is one lesson better than another 
taught by the war, it is that a man may retreat successfully 
from almost any position, if he only starts in time. [Laugh- 
tcr.'] 

In alluding to the Citizen Soldier I desire it to be dis- 
tinctly understood that I make no reference to that organiza- 
tion of Home Guards once formed in Kansas, where the com- 
manding officer tried to pose as one of the last surviving heroes 
of the Algerine War, when he had never drawn a sword but 
once and that was in a raffle [laughter'] and where his men 
had determined to emulate the immortal example of Lord 
Nelson. The last thing that Nelson did was to die for his 
country, and this was the last thing they ever intended to do. 
[Latcghter.'] 

I allude to that Citizen Soldier who breathed the spirit 
of old Miles Standish, but had the additional advantage of 
always being able to speak for himself; who came down to the 
front with hair close cropped, clean shaven, newly baptized, 
fresh vaccinated, pocket in his shirt, musket on his shoulder, 
ready to do anything, from squirrel hunting up to manslaughter 
in the first degree. He felt that with a single rush he could 
carry away two spans of wire-barbed fence without scratching 



28 

himself. If too short-sighted to see the enemy he would go 
nearer, if lame he would make this an excuse to disobey an 
order to retreat, if he had but one stocking he would take it off 
his foot in wet weather and wrap it around the lock of his gun, 
and as to marching, he would keep on the march as long as he 
had upper garments enough left to wad a gun or nether gar- 
ments enough to flag a train with. \_Laughter.~\ He was the 
last man in a retreat the first man in an enemy's smoke house. 
When he wanted fuel he took only the top rail of the fence, 
and kept on taking the top rail till there was none of that fence 
left standing. \_Langhtcr.'] The New England soldier knew 
everything that was between the covers of books, from light 
infantry tactics to the new version of the Scriptures. One day, 
on a forced march in Virginia, a New England man was lag- 
ging behind, when his colonel began stirring him up and telling 
him he ought to make better time. He at once started to 
argue the case with the colonel, and said : " See here, col- 
onel, I've studied the tactics and hev learned from 'em how to 
form double column at half distance, but I hev never yet 
learned how to perform double distance on half rations." 
[^Laughter.'] 

But, Mr. President, this is a subject which should receive a 
few serious words from me before I sit down. Tt was not until 
the black war cloud of rebellion broke upon us that we really 
appreciated the Citizen Soldier at his full worth. But when 
the country was struck we saw, pouring down from the hill 
tops, and surging up from the valleys, that magnificent army of 
citizen soldiery, at the sight of which all Christendom stood 
amazed. They gathered until the streets of every hamlet in 
the land was lighted by the glitter of their steel and resounded 
to the tread of their marching columns. It seemed that the 
middle wall of partition was broken down between all classes, 
that we were living once more in the heroic ages, that there 
had returned to us the brave days of old, when none were for 
a party but all were for the State. [Applmisc.'] And then 
that unbroken line swept down to the front. But in that front 
what scenes were met ! There was the blistering Southern 
sun, swamps which bred miasma and death; rivers with impass- 
able approaches ; heights to be scaled, batteries to be cap- 



29 

tured, the open plain with guns in front and guns in flank, 
which swept those devoted columns until human blood flowed 
as freely as festal wine ; there was the dense forest, the under- 
growth barring the passage of man, the upper-growth shutting 
out the light of Heaven ; the wood afire, ammunition-trains 
exploding, the dead roasted in the flames, the wounded drag- 
ging their mangled limbs after them to escape its ravages, 
until it seemed that Christian men had turned to fiends, and 
Hell itself had usurped the place of earth. {^Applaiisc?^ 

And when success perched upon our banners, when the 
bugle sounded the glad notes of final and triumphal victory, 
the disbanding of that army was even more marvellous than its 
organization. It disappeared, not as the flood of waters of the 
spring, which rend the earth, and leave havoc and destruction 
in their course ; but rather, as was once eloquently said, like 
the snows of Winter under a genial sun, leaving the face of 
Nature untouched, and the handy-word of man undisturbed ; 
not injuring, but moistening and fructifying the earth. {Ap- 
plause?^ But the mission of the Citizen Soldier did not end 
there, it has not ended yet. We have no European enemy to 
dread, it is true ; we have on our own continent no foeman 
worthy of our steel ; for, unlike the lands of Europe, this land 
is not cursed by propinquity. But we must look straight in 
the face the fact that we have in our midst a discontented 
class, repudiated alike by employers and by honest laborers. 
They come here from the effete monarchies of the old world, 
rave about the horrors of tyrannous governments and make 
no distinction between them and the blessings of a free and 
independent government. They have, but a little while ago, 
created scenes in which mob-law ruled the hour, riot held its 
sanguinary sway and the earth of our streets tasted the blood 
of our citizens. When such scenes as these occur, we cannot 
wait for aid from the crews of vessels in the ofling, we cannot 
look for succor to the army garrisons of distant forts ; but in 
our great cities — those plague spots in the body politic — we 
want trained militia who can rally as rapidly as the long roll 
can be beaten. And I know that all property owners feel 
safer, that all law-abiding citizens breathe freer when they see 
a militia, particularly like that in our own State, go forth in 



30 

the Summer to be inured to the hardships of the march, to 
the discipHne of tent-Hfe in the field, exhibiting an esprit de 
corps, a disciphne, a true touch of the elbow, which is beyond 
all praise. I love to take off my hat to their marching 
columns ; I love to salute its passing banners. They will al- 
ways be the true bulwark of our defence. I know of no man, 
and no set of men, who more gladly or more eagerly make this 
statement than those who have been reared in the regular 
army ; and I take particular pride in making this acknowledg- 
ment and paying this tribute in the presence of the senior 
and the most illustrious living commander of our Citizen 
Soldiery. (Alluding to General Sherman.) [Great applauseJ] 



President Winsloiu : — The next regular toast is, 

"THE SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES OF NEW ENG- 
LAND — THE FATHERS FOUNDED THEM IN THE EARLY 
DAYS; THEY HAVE KEPT ALIVE THE SPIRIT OF THE 
FATHERS IN THE LATER DAYS." 

New Englanders would not be true to themselves on an 
occasion of this kind if they did not provide a proper place for 
the cause of National Education. Without a head there can 
be no Republic. We are gratified to have with us to-night the 
President of one of the leading Universities of the land ; a year 
or two ago it was known as Yale College ; now Yale Univer- 
sity; the only difference, however, is said to be that Yale Uni- 
versity has changed the hours of recitation to accommodate 
the Base Ball Club. 

I have the honor to introduce President Dwight, of Yale 
University. 

SPEECH OF PRESIDENT DWIGHT. 
Mr. President and Gentlemen : 

During a part of General Porter's speech I thought of my- 
self as one of the citizen soldiers, and as one of those who made 



31 

Connecticut a little ahead in the number of volunteers, as Gen- 
eral Sherman read the record, or a little behind. I could not 
tell precisely which it was, for the noise in the house at the 
moment carried away from me the sound of his voice. It 
matters not, however, which it was. If Connecticut was be- 
hind by reason of my absence from the army as a citizen sol- 
dier, the fact that it was thus behind was evidently the fact 
that secured the victory for the nation through General Sher- 
man. And if, on the other hand, Connecticut was ahead 
because I was a citizen soldier, it was this fact that enabled 
General Porter to give to the closing portion of his remarks a 
tone somewhat more befitting this serious and solemn occasion, 
as you may have thought, than that which characterized the be- 
ginning of them. In either case, therefore, I feel, on this occa- 
sion, as I have felt at all former times when my thoughts have 
been turned to the subject, whether in private or in public, 
proud of the record of Connecticut. 

I appear before you, in response to your call, Mr. President, 
with some encouragement and yet with some embarrassment. 
My honored friend, Mr. Silliman, wrote to me a few days ago, 
asking if the toast which has been read would be satisfactory 
to me, and then kindly adding that on these occasions it was 
not considered to be in the least degree necessary that the 
speaker should make the slightest allusion to the toast assigned 
to him, or put his speech into any connection whatever with 
the text thus given. I wrote him in reply that, under these 
circumstances, the toast would be perfectly satisfactory. Ac- 
cordingly, having been accustomed to deal with texts, and 
sometimes with texts respecting which I had not a very large 
flow of ideas, I felt encouragement in coming here, in the thought 
that I might occupy the usual time of a public discourse with- 
out any objection on the part of the audience, no matter what 
I might do with the particular subject in hand. But when I 
found that General Sherman and General Porter were to speak 
before me I felt the embarrassment natural, in the presence of 
such men, to one quite unaccustomed to public speaking on 
occasions of this kind. With respect to General Porter, how- 
ever, I am not altogether embarrassed, but partly encouraged, 
and I will ask you, gentlemen, to permit me to give a word of 



32 

explanation as to what I mean. A few years ago it used to be 
allowable for a public speaker sometimes to tell a story which 
he had himself told before ; not to say one which had been 
told by somebody else. This is not permitted in the cases of 
ordinary men at the present time by the younger part of the 
community ; but I have been a professor in a college for many 
years, and it is a happy circumstance in the life of college pro- 
fessors that they do not meet the same audience in any given 
year which they met in the previous one. Occasionally, there- 
fore, they are able, with impunity, to repeat the same story. In 
the limited experience that I have had L find that these stories, 
thus repeated, are nearly as interesting to the audience of this 
year as they were to the audience of the last year. We who 
belong to the teacher's profession may well consider ourselves 
to be privileged men in this regard. And now, as your chair- 
man has assured you, I am the President of a University, and 
certainly must be thus privileged, for what use is there in being 
a President unless one can do as one pleases. I am ready to 
admit, however, that I am conscientiously opposed — not, in- 
deed, to telling again a story which some one else has told, for 
there are comparatively few in existence that are true which do 
not belong to this class of stories — but to telling again a story 
which I have myself told before. But I shall be pardoned on 
the present occasion, I hope, if I violate for once this excellent 
rule. You will see the reason why I violate it, I trust, before 
I sit down, and will consider the reason sufficient. 

In the month of October, a year ago, I was requested by 
one of the Secretaries of the American Missionary Association 
to speak at a meeting of that Association, which was to be held 
in New Haven. I objected, saying that I was not a platform 
speaker, not gifted in that line, and that I had a great deal to 
do, and presenting the various excuses which are well-known 
to all gentlemen present here who are sometimes invited to 
address such meetings. He wrote to me in reply that it would 
be sufficient, if I would show myself, and would give a kind of 
blessing to the cause. I answered that, if he merely wished 
me to stand up and pronounce the benediction, I would do so. 
In due time, the meeting was held and I was called upon to 
speak. In the course of the few words which I said, I men- 



33 

tioned the circumstance which I have just alluded to, but re- 
marked that, having showed myself by standing up, I could 
do no more, for as General Hawley, who had been asked to 
speak had not yet spoken, I could not pronounce the benedic- 
tion until he had finished what he had to say, and when that 
would be, I was unable to tell. A few days afterward, an edi- 
torial or article appeared in the New York Times, which stated 
that President Dwight rose at this meeting for the purpose of 
pronouncing the benediction ; that the audience all bowed 
their heads in reverent manner, and that thereupon he pro- 
ceeded to tell an amusing story. The writer of the article 
then followed this remarkable statement with the suggestion 
that President Dwight was undoubtedly proposing to pose in 
the character of Mr. Chauncey M. Depew and Gen. Horace 
Porter ! I told the story at a dinner of the Yale Alumni in 
New York, last winter, because Mr. Depew was present. As I 
have never had the pleasure of meeting General Porter until 
this evening, I ask indulgence for repeating it here. I tell it 
again, because it affords me some encouragement, as I am 
placed in the embarrassing position of following him as a 
speaker at this time — the ground of which encouragement 
may, perhaps, be best set forth by another little story con- 
nected with my own experience. In my earlier years, whea I 
was beginning my active life, I was invited to preach two Sab- 
baths in a certain country town in Connecticut. A part of 
the congregation, as I was informed afterward, had the idea 
that I was to preach on only one Sunday, and that a gentle- 
man by the name of Marvin was to appear on the second Sun- 
day. When the second Sunday came, therefore, a consider- 
able portion of the audience expected to find this other gen- 
tleman in the pulpit. In fulfillment of my duty, however, I 
preached the second time, and I was told, after the service was 
over, by the gentleman at whose house I was staying, that a 
good lady said to him, as he came away from the church, that 
she never saw two preachers who looked so much alike as Mr. 
Marvin and Mr. Dwight did. 

Now, gentlemen, if you will put these two stories together, 
you will see the encouragement that I have in following Gen- 
eral Porter, for when this meeting of the New England Society 



34 

is ended, and you go about your daily business to-morrow, you 
will, no doubt, think that General Porter and President Dwight 
look marvelously alike, and that I made the speech which he 
has made and which has so greatly interested the audience. 
The '' Citizen Soldier," who so strikingly resembles Gen. 
Horace Porter, stands before you. In the language of your 
Chairman, " Look at him !" 

I trust, gentlemen, that I have now met the approbation of 
m}^ honored friend, Mr. Silliman, by saying nothing whatever 
connected with the toast. But, as the old New England 
preachers never closed their sermons without what they called 
an " Improvement," I may, perhaps, be permitted to say a 
word or two after the same manner — a word or two related to 
the text or growing out of it. A year ago last September, 
through the kindness of the citizens of Dedham, Mass., I was 
invited to be present at the celebration of the Two Hundred 
and Fiftieth Anniversary of the settlement of the town. That 
town was settled by nineteen persons, one of whom was my 
paternal ancestor, John Dwight, who came to this country in 
1636, with his son Timothy Dwight. These nineteen persons 
were permitted by the General Court of Massachusetts to 
leave the Town of Watertown, because that town was sup- 
posed to be overcrowded, and to go into some other region 
where they might find a satisfactory abiding place. They went 
to the town which is now called Dedham. They went there 
to secure a home for themselves, and for those of like spirit 
with themselves. They desired a peaceful, happy life in a 
community animated by common thoughts and principles, and 
inspired by common purposes and hopes. They did not pro- 
pose to admit persons indiscriminately into their town, but only 
those who should prove, on examination into their character 
and habits, to be fitted for their fellowship. They wished to 
be at peace among themselves. After organizing their town 
and providing for the social and moral life of the community, 
they presented a memorial to the General Court of the Com- 
monwealth, requesting that the town might be named. In 
this memorial, according to the simple style of those days, 
they said that while, with all due respect, they would leave to 
the General Court the decision of the question as to what 



35 

name should be given to the town, they would, if allowed to 
have any voice in the matter themselves, decide that the town 
might be called ''Contentment." The spirit of those settlers 
of Dedham, gentlemen, was the spirit with which the Pilgrim 
and Puritan Fathers came to New England. They desired for 
themselves true contentment, and they organized their com- 
munities in the New World in order that they might secure 
this end. It was, however, a noble kind of contentment — a 
contentment founded upon unity in spirit, and upon a wise 
provision for the individual life, the family life, and the church 
life. They wished for an intelligent contentment in a moral 
and Christian community; and so they began immediately to 
establish schools, and very early in their history in Massa- 
chusetts, to establish a college for the education of their sons; 
as one of the early writers expresses it, " with a dread lest 
those who should follow them might grow up in ignorance." 
The spirit of the Fathers was the same, whithersoever they 
went, and it is the glory of the descendants of the Pilgrims and 
the Puritans, that they have had the same spirit even in these 
later generations. They have sought for a true contentment 
by means of the best provision for the family life, the church 
life, the university, college and school life. And thus they 
have made our land a land of happiness and peace. 

Those men of the early days of New England, gentlemen, 
were men of strong character, and we sometimes criticise and 
even smile at the strictness of some of their rules of living. 
But their age was the early age of the nation, and we of to- 
day may well remember that the strong life of boyhood is 
what prepares us best for the happy and contented life in 
after years, and that the man who fails in obedience to stern 
duty in the beginning of his career, will find himself bereft of 
the power which ennobles the end of it. I glory in the Pil- 
grim and Puritan ancestry, because they gave to us, their de- 
scendants, a sense of duty which moves forward with us 
through all our living, and, as life passes onward in its course, 
superadds to itself a contentment which is based upon the 
consciousness of duty fulfilled ; and I glory in them also be- 
cause they gave to us, as essential to this contentment, educa- 
tion and the gospel ; to make us know that the inward life is 



36 

higher and better than the outward life — that there is some- 
thing within us which is above and beyond the things that 
are around us. 

The audience then arose and sang the two following 
verses of 

America! 

" My country, 'tis of thee, 
Sweet land of liberty, 

Of thee I sing ; 
Land where my fathers died, 
Land of the pilgrims' pride, 
From every mountain side, 

Let freedom ring. 

" Our fathers' God to Thee, 
Author of liberty, 

To Thee we sing; 
Long may our land be bright 
With freedom's holy light ; 
Protect us by Thy might, 
Great God, our King." 



President Winsloiv : — The next toast, 

"CONNECTICUT," 

will be responded to by a gentleman who, in time of our late 
war, bore a distinguished part, heroic, able and brave, and 
now in time of peace holds and fills the great of^ce of United 
States Senator. 

Let me present Senator Hawley of Connecticut. 

General Hawley. in answer to the toast " Connecticut," 
said : 

There was not a joke recorded in Connecticut in her first 
history of one hundred and fifty years. General Porter can 
invent them as he stands. The first political speech was a 
sermon. It was delivered by Thomas Hooker, who brought 
his congregation to Hartford, and established the first regular 
free government in the world. 



37 

He gave a resume of this sermon, which, he said, was the 
embodiment of the principles which rule this great nation to- 
day. 

The speaker gave a resume of the early laws governing the 
State, and claimed that Connecticut's influence led to the 
adoption of the present constitutional form of government, 
based upon the methods that had always prevailed in that 
State. He spoke of the greatness of the men of Connecticut, 
of her soldiers and her statesmen. Of her patriotism he said 
there was no doubt. On the Colonial war she spent ;^400,ooo 
and sent 30,000 soldiers to battle for the king. In later days 
she had kept up the record for the preservation of the Union. 
He spoke of the charter, which was so perfect that no change 
was made in it until 1818. Connecticut was proud of her 
record, he said, and of its free schools, first established there; 
of their love of State rights and their desire for a strong Fed- 
eral government. In concluding, he said he joined with the 
assemblage in their pride for what their fathers did, and in the 
glowing future of the country. 



TJic President : — The next regular toast 

"NEW ENGLAND IN THE WEST," 

was to have been responded to by Governor Hoadley, of Ohio, 
but for reasons mentioned in his letter, which the Secretary 
will now read, he is unable to be with us to-night, and so we 
reserve him for next year. 

Mr. Moore, the Secretary, then read the following letter : 

December, 20, 1887. 
Hiram W. Hunt, Esq.: 

My Dear Sir,—1 am very suddenly and unexpectedly 
called to Columbus, O., on business of the highest conse- 
quence to me. I must leave to-night. The result of this is, I 
shall lose the pleasure of being present at the dinner of the 
Brooklyn New England Society to-morrow evening, and the 
company will be spared the bore of a speech by me. I am 



38 

extremely sorry. I hate to take this Winter journey, but 
more than all am I disappointed because I shall lose the very 
great pleasure and satisfaction I had anticipated of making 
the acquaintance of the members of the society and enjoying 
the pleasure of the occasion. As a good New England born 
man, however, I must listen to the call of duty, postponing 
all other considerations, otherwise I should be unworthy of 
my lineage, my birthplace and the association with your society 
which promised me so much pleasure. Please present my re- 
grets to Mr. Winslow, Mr. Silliman and their associates of the 
Committee of Invitation, and believe me to remain 

Yours, very sincerely, 

George Hoadley. 



TJie President : — The next regular toast is 

" THE PURITANS AND THE PILGRIMS AS 
IDEALISTS." 

The gentleman who will respond is known to many of 
you as one of the most brilliant clergyman of the City of 
Brooklyn. 

I have now the pleasure of introducing the Rev. Dr. 
Chamberlain. 

ADDRESS OF REV. L. T. CHAMBERLAIN, D.D., 

Mr. President and Gentlemen : 

As I rise, at your call and greeting, to respond to the sen- 
timent assigned, there comes before me anew the vision of 
those in whose honor we are gathered, — the humble men and 
women of the Mayflower and those essentially their kindred, 
the settlers of the colony of Massachusetts Bay. I reverently 
rejoice that in the midst of our always rushing and sometimes 
riotous life, there comes, for the descendants of New England 
at least, this annual observance dedicated to the recalling of 
the beginnings, the principles, the causes, of our historical 
greatness; as when, in ancestral halls, children, and children's 



39 

children, convene to look with loving admiration on the pic- 
tured faces and forms of those from whose loins they have 
sprung. 

Mr. President, I could well nigh forget the perfume, the 
poetry, the pride, of a scene like this, and living over again 
those sterner days, when to obey conscience was exile, and 
to obey God was death. Nor should I be without warrant 
in so doing. It is on record that the Periclean Greeks treas- 
ured the traditions of the earliest ages, and that even the 
Augustan Roman would sometimes turn, in thought from the 
triumphs and trophies of the Caesars, to "the wicker hut of 
Romulus, and the thatched roof of the primitive Capitol." 
" Who would think," writes Ovid, recalling'the time when the 
low hills by the Tiber were the lair of wild beasts, " who would 
think that such a spot could hold so wide a place in the con- 
cerns of destiny?" 

Therefore, casting a swift and exultant glance at the pro- 
portions of our modern Republic, leaping in eighty years from 
fivQ millions to fifty millions, already surpassing the mother 
land in wealth and many another resource of power, I think 
of " a certain poor people " of Lincolnshire and vicinage, who 
almost three hundred years ago, humbly affirmed their right 
" to walk in all the ways which God had made known, or 
should make known to them." 

Does some one say. An unimportant affirmation, embody- 
ing a truism rather than a discovery, and whose axiomatic 
force none could think to deny. 

Come with me, then. We will sail to-night, eastward 
bound, until our feet press the soil of that ancient England 
from which issued Puritan and Pilgrim alike ! Elizabeth, that 
queen of queens, sitting silently, at last, with her wasted fin- 
ger on her wasted lips, but with imperious spirit unsubdued, 
has gone into the endless silence. But she has left behind 
her her Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity, the one putting 
all ecclesiastical as well as legislative power in the hands of 
the government, and the other decreeing a standard of relig- 
ious doctrine and discipline from which none may vary save 
at peril. To Elizabeth has succeeded James, buffoon and 
pedant, but with a genius for tyranny in both Church and 



40 

State. It is he who, from his place on the throne, affirms the 
Divine Right of Kings, and the Divine Right of Bishops as 
well. And alas, he means it. It is his " slobbering tongue " 
which, in the Star-Chamber itself, declares that " As it is a 
theism and blasphemy for man to dispute what God can do, so 
it is presumption and high contempt for a subject to dispute 
what a king can do, or to say a king cannot do this or that." 
It is he who breaks up the conference of Puritan divines at 
Hampton Court, with the ominous threat " I will make them 
conform, or I will harry them out of the land." It is his 
malevolent hand which actually tears from the Journal of the 
House of Commons the immortal declaration that " The lib- 
erties, franchises, privileges, and jurisdictions of Parliament, 
are the ancient and undoubted birthright and inheritance of 
the subjects of England ; and that in the handling and pro- 
ceeding of business, each member of the House hath and of 
right ought to have, freedom of speech to propound, treat, 
reason, and bring to conclusion the same." Ministers who 
decline to submit to the wearing of the surplice and to the 
making of the sign of the Cross, are dispossessed. Congre- 
gations worshiping in the ways which seem to them right, are 
dispersed. Their houses of worship are destroyed. 

Is it, then, a thing either trite or trivial, when " a poor 
people " in Lincolnshire and vicinage, still dauntlessly affirm 
their right " to walk in all the ways which God makes known 
or shall make known to them?" I pray you, put yourselves 
in their humble place ; throne and church, army and magis- 
trate, against you ; peace, possessions, life itself, in peril ; the 
gloom darkening even the future like the baleful forecast of 
total eclipse. What, in such a crisis, child of this later civil- 
ization, and of these " piping times of peace," wilt thou do ? 
To the summons " Under which King, Bezonian ? speak, or 
die !" — what answer wilt thou make ? For one, I lay my 
grateful tribute at the feet of those who in that dark hour 
made true answer for us all, and said, " Exile, or death, when- 
ever it may be ; but compromise or surrender, never !" Souls 
which felt the impress of a great conviction ; minds which 
thrilled to the touch of a sublime idea; men and women in 
whom ideals found place and sway, and by whom those ideas 



41 

were produced in deeds that shall never be forgotten ! Ideal- 
ists were they, not in the petty sense of denying the existence 
of matter, but in the grand sense of affirming the existence 
and supremacy of ideas. 

I read the page which records their fealty to their best 
convictions; their forsaking of home and 'native land; their 
braving of a wild and stormy, and almost trackless, ocean ; 
their disembarking under wintry skies, on a^wild and inhos- 
pitable shore ; their endurance of cold, and famine, and disease, 
and death ; six dying between that memorable 21st of Decem- 
ber and New Year's day, eight in January, seventeen in Feb- 
ruary, and thirteen in March ; yet the Mayflozvei', on her re- 
turn, April 5th, carrying with her not one of the Pilgrim 
band. I read that page, and the actors in the great drama 
seem, at first sight, not so much men and women by whom 
ideas and ideals have been cherished, as ideas, ideals absolute, 
taking possession of mortal beings and bearing them on the 
tide and crest of conviction, as the great Atlantic bore the 
Mayflozvcr on the sweep and roll of its prodigious power. 
There is, indeed, the material setting, but the forces are evi- 
dently spiritual, even as the great Kaulbach once painted, 
above the scene of earthly battle, countless spirits from the 
skies, contending in the upper air concerning the world-wide 
triumph of justice and truth. 

Yet, Mr. President, we miss both the tragedy and the 
pathos of the facts, if we suppose, for an instant, that those 
who idealized life and calmly faced death, were not of like 
passions with ourselves. Our Puritans and Pilgrims were no 
devotees of the Orient, whose bodies they tell us may un- 
consciously burn or starve, while the spirit keeps its trance. 
They had been reared in no Hindoo school of faith, whose 
wisdom consists in crushing out the desires and affections. 
No ! Men were they, with fondnesses and attachments like 
our own, — women, to whom the loves of earth were next to 
faith in God. As the companions of the pious yEneas once 
plucked up bushes whose roots dripped with blood, so our 
exiles, in their going forth, severed relationships at the sun- 
dering of which their hearts both wept and bled. Did John 
Winthrop, in prospect of being forced to leave his native 



42 

land, declare " I will call that my country where I can most 
glorify God, and enjoy the presence of my best friends ?" Yet 
" Farewell, dear England !" was the cry which burst from the 
lips of the emigrants, as the familiar shores faded forever from 
their view ; and Winthrop himself wrote back to those whom 
he left behind, " Our eyes will be fountains of tears for your 
everlasting welfare, when we are in our poor cottages in the 
wilderness." 

Believe it, no morbid nor insensate thing was early English 
Puritanism ! It stopped not even with a Cromwell, for whose 
portrait, as for Achilles', might have stood 

" A spear 
Grasped in an armed hand." 

Rather did it find its true historical representative, as well as 
its " bright, consumate flower," in that Milton, who had fond 
appreciation of the scholar's reverie, the musician's enchant- 
ment, the artist's rapture, the poet's thrill, yet put the trumpet 
of freedom to his lips, and blew the blast which resounded 
from the shores of the Old World to the New. 

In that great sense the Puritans and Pilgrims were the 
idealists of their age, and of the ages since. They looked 
beyond the person of the oppressor, to condemn and resist 
oppression itself. They looked beyond themselves, to advo- 
cate the rights of man as man. They looked beyond institu- 
tions and civilizations, to lay hold on those principles which 
are a sufficient basis. They looked beyond the seas, to find a 
home for civil and religious freedom. They looked beyond 
earth itself, to find in Heaven the city of their final rest ; — 
" The city that lieth four-square, whose builder and maker is 
God." 

Theirs, sir, was the spirit which has ever incarnated itself 
in the anointed and the elect. Abraham had that spirit, when 
he went up obediently from Ur of the Chaldees, " not know- 
ing whither he went." Moses had it, " when he refused to be 
called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, chosing rather to suffer 
affliction with the people of God." David had it, when, in 
the hour of his anguish and shame, he prayed not so much 
for happiness as for restoration to righteousness and truth. 



43 

Peter and John had it, when to the Captain of the Temple 
and the Sadducees they replied, " Whether it be right to 
hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye !" Tertul- 
lian had it, when he said, " It is ours to be called before the 
seats of judgment, there to contend for the truth at the haz- 
ard of our lives. Though we are slain, we are conquerors. 
The flames are our triumphal chariot. The fagots are our 
robe of state !" Ignatius had it, when he wrote to the Ro- 
mans, " It is better for us to die for the truth than to reign 
over the ends of the earth," Helvidius Priscus had it, when 
to the Emperor who had threatend his life, he replied, " Do 
your part, and I will do mine. It is yours to kill me, mine to 
die untrembling; yours to banish me, mine to go into banish- 
ment without lament." Lame Epictetus had it, when he de- 
clared, " As there is nothing meaner than love of pleasure and 
insolence, so there is nothing nobler than high-mindedness, 
gentleness, philanthropy, and the doing of good." Marcus 
Aurelius had it, when he said, " Let them see, let them know 
a man who lives as he was meant to live. If they cannot en- 
dure him, let them kill him, for that is better than to live as 
many do." It was the spirit of Ambrose and Luther, of 
Hampden and Huss, of Lafayette and Lincoln. 

Well, will it be for us, fellow-citizens, sons of New Eng- 
land sires, if we cherish the same spirit, and prove our right 
to stand, however humbly, in that same illustrious line. 

I submit that the supreme need of these our times is the 
need of being brought back again to the fair, firm foundations 
of personal, social, national well-being; to be given our true 
poise again, in view of those ideas and ideals which, after all, 
are eternal and regnant. Men may dream that in the abund- 
ance of material possessions is peace and power. They may 
imagine that government is an art and an artifice. They may 
blindly think that the social bond is self-interest. They may 
proceed upon the supposal that in a soft and sensuous civiliz- 
ation is the height of human felicity. But so long as worthy 
representatives of Miltonian Puritanism remain, there will be 
those who will know and teach the needful truth ! I repeat, 
our inclination now-a-days is toward the over-looking of moral 
forces. We somewhat shrink from the austere and rugged. 



44 

We are apt to care for the refinements, rather than equities ; 
for the Corinthian capital, rather than the Doric shaft ; for the 
dulce decus, rather than the prcesidunn columenque rerum. 
Yet in our present great emergencies nothing save the sterner 
virtues will suflfice, even as in the coming hour of anguish, our 
one hope will be in that pure righteousness which wins the 
approval of Heaven. Be assured that if, by the wayside of 
our imperial progress, the wounded lie a-dying, and no good 
Samaritan stoops to bind up the wounds ; if, through our 
greed, the sweat of the laborer falls in unrequited toil ; if, 
from ground which we call ours, the blood of innocence cries ; 
inquisition will be made. It is a Persian saying, " Beware of 
wronging the weak, for when the orphan weeps, the throne of 
God rocks from side to side." 

I am confident, however, that we shall not prove recreant 
to our trust. Set in the confluence and vortex of the world's 
forces, we shall be sobered by the weight of responsibilities, 
and inspired by the recalling of our providential begininngs. 
Ours is no puny, pigmy race ! I well remember that in the 
early days of that great crisis whose veterans, thank God, are 
still with us, the distrustful said, "An easy self-indulgence has 
sapped the vigor and broken the nerve of the nation's life. 
The time when men could say, ' It is sweet to die for one's 
country,' has forever gone by." But the answer came back 
from a hundred battle-fields, and the refutation is now com. 
plete in a rescued Union, to whose maintainance the former 
combatants on either side, are equally and irrevocably 
pledged. 

" No more shall the war cry sever, 
Nor the winding rivers be red. 
They banish our anger forever 

When they laurel the graves of our dead. 
Under the sod and the dew, 
Waiting the Judgment Day; 
Love and tears for the Blue, 
Tears and love for the Grey." 

Hail, then, to the idealists of our ancestral times! Their 
sternness need not affright us. Out of self-denial comes finest 
joy. Out of strength comes sweetness. The pensive willow 
may lisp its soft response to the sighing breeze, yet it is the 



45 

Memnon's statue, carved in marble by a master's hand, which 
discourses matchless music at touch of the rising sun. As 
Themistocles confessed concerning the trophies of Miltiades, 
so we acknowledge concerning the courage and valor of Puri- 
tan and Pilgrim — " They will not let us sleep." Plymouth 
Rock shall still be for us a cherished shrine ! As, said the 
Bishop of Orleans, speaking of the tomb of Lamoriciere's 
young soldiers who died in holy battles — " I will go there to 
cast a look to Heaven, and to ask for the triumph of justice 
and honor on the earth. I will go there to lift my spirit from 
its sadness, and to strengthen my soul amid its fatigues. I 
will go there to learn from them how to devote myself to the 
causes of justice and truth, to my last breath, and my last 
word." 

Mr. President, it was a Puritan, John Eliot, who, in 1629, 
in the House of Commons, with the wrath of a tyrant king 
impending, declared that the truth of God and the rights of 
man were to be upheld by both word and deed. He con- 
tinued : " In Eastern churches, at the repetition of the creed, 
to signify the purpose of maintaining it, there is a custom of 
standing not only with bodies erect, but also with swords 
drawn." He concluded, "Give me leave to call that a custom 
very commendable." — {Long continued applause^ 



The President : — The next regular toast is 

"THE CITY OP BROOKLYN." 

A few days ago the people of Brooklyn were warmly en- 
gaged in settling the question of whom should be its next 
Mayor. 

We have but one pleasure and one duty here to-night, and 
that is, irrespective of party, to greet the Mayor- Elect. We 
wish him well ; we wish him the best success in doing good 
work for the City of Brooklyn. 

I present the Mayor-Elect, Mr. Chapin. 



46 



ADDRESS OF HON. ALFRED C. CIIAPIN. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Nezo England Society 
in the City of Brooklyn : 

I thank you most heartily for your cordial reception of me ; 
I thank your President for the kind and sincere words he has 
spoken, and I thank you for the privilege of being your guest 
this evening. 

I should not. at any time feel over-confident in attempting 
to appear before your Society, but I confess that to-night I 
feel doubly diffident, after having listened to men whose names 
were the inspiration of my boyhood. It has come over me, as 
I have been sitting here, that eighteen years ago I traveled 300 
miles to look at General Sherman. [A/}/?lazese.'] And a year 
later than that I seized an opportunity to go from Cambridge 
to Boston to attend a political meeting not of my own faith, 
that I might listen to the gentleman who sits upon my left. 
(General Hawley.) In these circumstances, and reflecting 
especially upon the thrilling eloquence of the gentleman who 
has just taken his seat, I feel that it would be a relief to me if 
I could follow a similar historical precedent, and could be 
excused by saying " ditto" to those who have gone before me. 
But, as I appear before your Society for the first time, perhaps 
I can begin in no better way than by telling you who I am and 
where I come from. Some six or seven years ago I had a 
slight curiosity myself upon these subjects, and, therefore, 
spent some time in digging up my ancestors — a task which I 
performed with a more than ghoulish glee. [Latighter.'j It 
happens that in the paternal as well as in the maternal line, 
my first ancestor in this country was in New England more 
than 250 years ago, and that both of them were in the Con- 
necticut Valley among the earliest, one of them going to 
Springfield, the other to Northampton, places which, as you 
know, lie hardly a dozen miles apart. From that day down to 
the time when my father and mother were married in South 
Hadley, just across the river from Northampton, none of those 
from whom I am descended left the valley of the brilliant 
winding river, and no collateral blood flowecl in except such as 



47 

came from men and women who were also early settlers in the 
same locality. You are familiar with the interesting computa- 
tion of our old friend Blackstone, in which he demonstrates 
that, as we have two parents, four grandparents, eight great- 
grandparents, and so on uninterruptedly for generations, we 
can trace our lineage to so immense a number of ancestors that 
the whole world could not contain them. Two conclusions 
seem to follow from this : 

First — Everybody is descended from everybody, which is an 
unfortunate conclusion for persons of undemocratic leanings ; 
and, Second— ^\e.\yho Ay is the father of everybody, which is an 
unfortunate conclusion no matter what your social or political 
views may be. In the ancestral task which I set for myself, it 
was no part of my intention to embark upon such a trackless 
sea as that of the great commentator. I merely desired to 
make some acquaintance with the men and women of two cen- 
turies ago and more, to whom I was allied by blood ; and by 
acquaintance with them to learn something of the life w^hich 
characterized early New England. You who have studied the 
history of that period will readily believe that many of these 
ancestors proved to be men we would now call plain. Their 
annals, although they could not quite be designated in the 
language of the poet as short and simple, for the reason that 
our ancestors had a way of living to a good old age, were at 
least simple. At the same time I do not recall that there was 
any one among those with whom I made acquaintance who 
would need to make any elaborate apology for the manner in 
which he acquitted himself while living. Perhaps the state- 
ment that they were plain ought to be qualified. There seems 
to have been a sufficient fondness for titles prevailing among 
them ; some were deacons and elders, some were lieutenants 
and ensigns, and some were adorned with both military and 
ecclesiastical honors, and were called deacon and lieutenant at 
one and the same time. The transformation or duplicity of 
character with which one of the personages in a recent popu- 
lar musical drama is endowed, must have been anticipated in 
those early days. As the pious worshiper sat in his pew list- 
ening to the thirty-first head of a sermon, he was a deacon and 
nothing but a decaon ; but when the valley rang with the 



48 

war-whoop, as it did more than once, he remembered that he 
was a Heutenant, grasped the musket, which providentially 
stood at the head of the pew, and went out for a practical dis- 
cussion of the Indian question. What the noble red man's 
intentions were I cannot fathom, but at different times he slew 
so many of my ancestors, both male and female, that it is a 
wonder to me that I ever survived. [^Laughter.'] My own 
survival is not perhaps so wonderful as that of one among 
those relatives of mine — a woman who was scalped, and who 
lived for six months afterward. [Laiightt:r.'\ But other hard- 
ships beset the men from whom I am descended. There is a 
publication of the Seventeenth Century which you, of course, 
often take up in your leisure moments. I allude to the 
" Magnalia " of Cotton Mather. It is a work dear to the 
modern scientists ; there are few physicians who cannot find 
something novel in its pages. In this volume you will find a 
detailed and affecting narrative setting forth how one of my 
ancestors was " murdered with an hideous witchcraft." It is a 
sad story for a relative to dwell upon. \Laug}iteri\ He was, 
as the book describes him, " a son of eminently virtuous 
parents, a deacon of the church in Hadley, a member of the 
general court, a justice in the country court, a selectman for 
the affairs of the town, a lieutenant of the troop, and, which 
crowns all, a man for devotion, and sanctity, and gravity, and 
all that was honest, exceedingly exemplary." I read this 
description to call attention to the family resemblance. " Such 
a man was in the winter of 1684 murdered with an hideous 
witchcraft that filled all those parts of New England with 
astonishment. * * * About the beginning of January he 
began to be very ' valetudinarious,' and labored under pains 
that seemed to be ischiatic. * * * They beheld fire some- 
times on the bed, and when the beholders began to discourse 
of it, it vanished away. Divers people actually felt something 
stir in the bed at a considerable distance from the man. It 
seemed as big as a cat ; but they could never grasp it. A very 
strong man could not lift the sick man to make him lie more 
easily, though he applied his utmost strength to it, and yet he 
could go presently and lift a bedstead and the bed and a man 
lying on it without any strain to himself at all." Of course a 



49 

patient thus afflicted could not be expected to survive. It 
is cheering to know, however, that his disease does not seem 
to have been hereditary, and none of his descendants have 
ever suffered from being bewitched except in that familiar 
way which tends to perpetuate the race and not to destroy it. 
\Laughtcr and applait.se.~] There are, indeed, skeptics who 
scoff at the narrative, and say that Cotton Mather had the 
wool pulled over his eyes. If you were not steady men, 
descended from a grave people, there might be present some 
flippant mind who would inquire what all this had to do with 
" The City of Brooklyn," the toast which is assigned to me. 
If such a question should be raised I might answer variously. 
I might say, somewhat technically, that I never agreed to 
respond to the toast of " The City of Brooklyn." Your Presi- 
dent, it is true, wrote to me saying that the Mayor-elect 
usually responded to that toast. But it may be that I am a 
capricious person who does not wish to do that which is 
usually done ; nevertheless, waiving that point, I will try to 
show that there is a connection between my remarks and my 
subject. It is the first duty of an orator to secure the confi- 
dence of his hearers, and in unfolding to you these proud 
secrets of my lineage I have acted upon the theory that if 
you could see that I, like yourselves, was a New Englander, 
with a title that could not be questioned, you would respect 
me as you did yourselves. This self respect should not be and 
is not disfigured by illiberality. As Americans, you insist on 
the general principle that it makes no difference where one is 
born ; but that general principle is slightly qualified by the 
consideration that it is well for a man, if he can so arrange it, 
to be born in New England, \_Langhter.^ At the same time, 
we New Englanders draw no odious line about ourselves. 
When we run for office, we accept the votes of all kinds of 
men, without prejudice or partiality. [Langhter\ And some- 
times when the vote is counted we find that it would have 
been highly inconvenient to have acted upon any other 
theory. [Laughter.'] When a Yankee tries to make money he 
does not insist on making it all out of his brother Yankees ; he 
likes to make a living more easily. [^Laughter.'] In short, we 
are much like the rest of mankind — not too good for earth ; 



50 

and we have not found any part of the earth which, in our 
opinion, is too good for us. But among the spots which seem 
to be regarded as just about good enough, a specially bright 
place is accorded to this City of Brooklyn, which your Presi- 
dent has given me as my theme. As a result, you find Brook- 
lyn to be a community which exhibits certain characteristics 
for which it is largely indebted to New England. To begin 
with, Brooklyn, as a political constituency, is said to be pos- 
sessed of rare capacity for fine discrimination. Perhaps the 
discussion of this quality ought to be left to others ; but I 
think that I may properly call attention to the fact that in the 
recent election it exhibited a discrimination so fine, marked 
by so minute a regard for details, that a trivial miscalculation 
would have disturbed the result. ^Laughter and applause]. Is 
there any other element in our city's population which could 
have adjusted the contending forces with such nicety and 
evenness of balance ? Undoubtedly that credit belongs to 
New England. [Laughter.'] Do you think that any one but 
a New England candidate would have been so wisely econom- 
ical and have wasted so few votes? \^LaiigJiter and applause]. 
There is a strong New England flavor about the slender 
plurality of last November. When I first contemplated it 
I seemed to be in the presence of a familiar friend. I felt 
indeed sustained and cheered, but in a solemn manner; as 
one might feel after reading a sermon of Jonathan Edwards 
on the " Fewness of the Elect." [Applause and laughter.] 
But before we too eagerly praise the Brooklyn of to-day 
or the New England element in it, let us for a moment con- 
sider a feature of the political life of Brooklyn two centuries 
ago. Something has recently been heard of the doctrine that 
public office is a public trust ; but the men who controlled our 
city's affairs when it was the village of Breuckelen understood 
that doctrine more broadly and wisely than we do. In 1650, 
the Director-General sent the following order to a citizen who 
had been elected Schepen of Breuckelen : " If you will not 
assent to act as Schepen for the welfare of the Village of 
Breuckelen with others, your fellow-residents, then you must 
prepare yourself and sail in the ship King Solomon, for Hol- 
land," and he prepared himself and sailed. [Laughter.] Now 



51 

there are men in Brooklyn, I will not say there are men here 
to-night, whose public spirit is of such a sort that they ought 
to prepare themselves and sail. They do not realize that the 
doctrine to which I have made reference has two sides. 
When stated in its fullness, it should read as the men of 1650 
made it read ; public office is a public trust, which cannot be 
evaded or declined. Suppose the Mayor-elect should now say 
to some capable, prosperous citizen: "Since you will not 
accept service in the city which has given you a home ; since 
you madly persist in heaping up dollars, which may corrode 
the heart of your daughter, or enervate the limbs of your 
son ; since you make an end of the means, and work with 
demented energy for some son-in-law or nephew, who is not 
now known to you, then you are not worthy to live in Brook 
lyn, and you must prepare yourself and sail." You all know 
I am not dealing with any product of my imagination. Rich 
as we think we are, Brooklyn is poorer to-day than in 1650. 
She cannot command the capacity and force of many a man 
who might serve her ably and well. These very men may be 
first and loudest to complain that government is not kept up 
to its old standard. They will even tell you that government 
has gone down, while the citizen has risen. Such a statement 
is absurd. It is a New England poet who says : 

" No age was e'er degenerate, 

Unless men held it at too cheap a rate. 
For in our likeness still we shape our fate." 

Excellent as wealth is, excellent as material progess is, I am 
by no means sure that I admire or envy the State or city 
whch encourages such a theory and scale of living that men 
think they cannot afford to serve the public upon a salary of 
$5,000 a year. I am very sure that I neither admire nor envy 
the intelligence of that citizen who thinks it wise to neglect 
public duty to amass wealth which he cannot use. The men 
whom we celebrate this evening made no such mistake ; and 
the results are known. It is simply historical truth that town- 
government in New England from 1650 to 1800 was better 
conducted than it has been since. Public records were kept 
with more fullness and care. The essential elements of politi- 



52 

cal life were more thoroughly maintained. We do not 
come together as alarmists nor to renew the cry against 
extravagance, repeated from age to age. But for myself I 
would say with emphasis, that by many whose traditions 
should teach them far otherwise, the relative excellence of 
different modes of life has been profoundly misconceived, and 
as a consequence, true and valuable public spirit has in some 
ways sadly declined. It is strange that this should be so. 
When and where in all the world's history has honorable pub- 
lic spirit looked upon such a field as this great Republic whose 
manifest destiny is chief among our household words. When 
has legitimate ambition been so magnificently inspired as here. 
Not less manifest than the destiny of America is the destiny 
of Brooklyn. While the Union lives and grows, the surging 
currents of its energy and trafBc will seek this port, upon 
whose borders lies the municipality which shelters us, and 
which we, in turn, should adorn and strengthen. If one of 
those stern men of the Bible and musket could stand among 
us to-day, he would doubtless rejoice at the comfort and afflu- 
ence which enfold the life of his descendants. But most of all 
he would rejoice at, not at our possessions, but at the grandeur 
and opulence of our opportunity. Surveying these things, 
and weighing them at their true worth, he would turn from 
the luxurious and material allurements besetting them upon 
every hand, and would perhaps recall that appeal — which was 
not less a warning — addressed to the men of an elder race, 
men of iron like himself, a race which, like his own, poured its 
strenuous life current into the very heart of human progress, 
and which never faltered in its course, nor ceased to rule the 
world until self-indulgence dragged it down, civic virtue died, 
and the ideals of the Nation's youth were forgotten and dis- 
honored. 

" Leave to the soft Campanian 

His baths and his perfumes ; 
Leave to the sordid race of Tyre 

Their dyeing vats and looms ; 
Leave to the sons of Carthage, 

The rudder and the oar ; 
Leave to the Greek his marble nymphs, 

And scrolls of wordy lore. 



5; 



Thou wast not made for lucre, 

For pleasure nor for rest. 
From sunrise until sunset 

All earth shall hear thy fame 
A glorious city thou shalt build 

And name it by thy name ; 
And there, unquenched through ages, 

Like Vesta's sacred fire. 
Shall live the spirit of thy nurse. 

The spirit of thy sire." 



President Winslow: — The next regular toast is, 

"OUR SISTER SOCIETIES." 

As there is but one representative present, Hon. John W. 
Hunter, President of the St. Nicholas Society, and late Mayor 
of Brooklyn, while it is not for me to direct his speech, if I 
could I would suggest that he first refer to the New York 
Society, then to the St. Patrick Society, and then, " by way of 
improvement," as our friend would say, throw in a word about 
his own. I now have the honor to present Hon. John W. 
Hunter. 

REMARKS OF HON. JOHN W. HUNTER. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Neiv England Society : 

It has been my duty at different times to impress upon the 
members of the St. Nicholas Society the great and paramount 
duties resting upon them as citizens. That the welfare of the 
city, of the State, of the country, and perhaps of the world, 
depended upon their integrity, etc. We are willing to ask help 
in this matter from sister societies like your own. And depend 
upon it, gentlemen, these duties will come upon us sooner or 
later ; for between that class whose desire and aim seem to be 
to kill and destroy, and that other class who aim to gather in 
their own hands all control of the business of others, in the 
shape of oil trusts, gas trusts, whiskey trusts, and by and by it 
will be bread and meat trusts, etc.; every want and business 
of life will be sought to be regulated and under control of trust 



54 

companies — whom nobody ought to trust. There must be a 
class of citizens who will contend that men shall be allowed to 
mind and control their own business affairs. Men who will 
trust the people, and in whom the people will have trust — and 
this class of men will most likely be found gathered into soci- 
eties for the promotion of good fellowship ; proud of their 
ancestry and of their country — will not be found among the 
disturbers of the public peace or of the even tenor of progress, 
but will be anxious to continue and promote the growth and 
prosperity of our country; and this class of citizens are much 
more important than they think. 



President Winslow: — We will now sing the Doxology, and 
then be dismissed. 

(The company then rose and in conclusion sang:) 

" Praise God from Whom all blessings flow, 
Praise Him all creatures here below, 
Praise Him above ye heavenly host. 
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost." 



59 

at Bunker Hill." " Yes," said the lady, "but if my memory 
serves me correctly the Americans have the hill." And they 
have the hill because of the retreat made from it. But for that 
disaster to our fathers there might have been no final Yorktown 
for them. But for the stampede at Bull Run there might not 
have been any Appomattox for their descendants. 

And Standish is memorable to-day because he met with a 
rout and stampede in a very badly managed campaign. He was 
defeated in an effort to obtain a wife, an unfortunate effort in 
which he violated his own rules and theories. According to 
the poet, Standish on one occasion looked up from his reading 
of the marvelous words and achievements of Julius Caesar, 
saying to John Alden, the schoolmaster, who was his chosen 
friend and who lived with him : 

" Truly a wonderful man was Caius Julius Caesar ! 
Better be first, he said, in a little Iberian village, 
Than be second in Rome, and I think he was right when he said it. 
Twice was he married before he was twenty, and many times after ; 
Battles five hundred he fought, and a thousand cities he conquered ; 
He, too, fought in Flanders, as he himself has recorded ; 
Fmally he was stabbed by his friend, the orator Brutus ! 
Now, do you know what he did on a certain occasion in Flanders, 
When the rear-guard of his army retreated, the front giving way too. 
And the immortal Twelfth Legion was crowded so closely together 
There was no room for their swords ? Why, he seized a shield from a soldier, 
Put hmiself straight at the head of his troops, and commanded the captains. 
Calling on each by his name, to order forward the ensigns ; 
Then to widen the ranks, and give more room for their weapons ; 
So he won the day, the battle of something-or-other. 
That 's what I always say ; if you wish a thing to be well done. 
You must do it yourself, you must not leave it to others ! " 

It is a human tendency to sometimes use single and isolated 
texts of Scripture that were given, as a tvhole, to be a rule of 
faith and practice, and on these separate passages to form rules 
of right and plans of duty, concentrating the power of the 
entire Word on special texts. And Standish seems to be 
somewhat of a single text man. 

A preacher debating upon the whereabouts of the " Lost 
Tribes," or the "Sleep of the dead," or something equally 
profitable or unprofitable, said, "In this matter, I stand right 
square upon the Bible." "Well," said his disputant, " You 
had better stand right square off of it a little while, and read 



6o 

the Bible more, and you will know more about it." This is 
sound advice to all single text people. 

Rose Standish lay dead on the hillside, and her survivor, 
the grim warrior, recalled the statement of Holy Writ, which 
says, " It is not good for man to be alone." He felt the call of 
duty to carry out this Bible injunction, and, looking over the 
colony, it seemed to him that the fair maiden Priscilla would 
exactly suit the situation. And so he said to the schoolmaster, 
John Alden, who also had great admiration for the same young 
lady : 

" 'T is not good for man to be alone, say the Scriptures. 
This I have said before, and again and again I repeat it ; 
Every hour in the day, I think it, and feel it, and say it. 
Since Rose Standish died, my life has been weary and dreary ; 
Sick at heart ha%'e I been, beyond the healing of friendship. 
Oft in my lonely hours have I thought of the maiden Priscilla. 
She is alone in the world ; her father and mother and brother 
Died m the wniter together ; I saw her going and coming, 
Now to the grave of the dead, and now to the bed of the dynig. 
Patient, courageous, and strong, and said to myself, that if ever 
There were angels on earth, as there are angels in heaven. 
Two have I seen and known ; and the angel whose name is Priscilla 
Holds in my desolate life the place which the other abandoned. 
Long have I cherished the thought, but never have dared to reveal it, 
Being a coward in this, though valiant enough for the most part. 
Go the damsel Priscilla, the loveliest maiden of Plymouth, 
Say that a blunt old Captain, a man not of words but of actions, 
Offers his hand and his heart, the hand and heart of a soldier. 
Not in these words, you know, but this in short is my meaning ; 
I am a maker of war, and not a maker of phrases. 
You, who are bred as a scholar, can say it in elegant language, 
Such as you read in your books of the pleadings and wooings of lovers. 
Such as you think best adapted to win the heart of a maiden." 

Now, every word of this was a stab to the heart of John 
Alden, but, being loyal to his friend, he goes on the errand. 
The bravest men in the world have their weak moments. 

As a rule Standish was fearless, but he could not face the 
music when it come to this affair of the heart. His blade of 
Damascus had flashed in the roar of war, he had stood un- 
daunted at the cannon's mouth, but he was once a coward, and 
like a true soldier he owned it up, that he dare not face point 
blank that little word " No" from the mouth of a woman. 

And oh, how many in this world since then have felt exactly 
what Standish feared. 



6i 

If the roll should be called of all those since that day who 
at some moment of their lives have collapsed and wilted and 
gone out of sight at the pronouncing of that terrific word " No," 
from some imaginary angel, causing a void that the world could 
never fill, what a standing up and showing of hands there 
would be among us. It seems as though the hand of fate never 
falls with such crushing effect upon a human being as when 
enclosed in a mitten. 

And Miles Standish was the first Yankee that ever felt that 
woolen death warrant to his hopes and peace of mind. But 
from Plymouth Rock to the Golden Gate his successors in this 
experience are now numbered by millions. 

But Priscilla, the fair maiden, had also read the Scriptures 
and she interpreted that very passage, saying " it is not well for 
man to be alone," as referring particularly to John Alden, and 
so she said to the bearer of the message, "Why not speak for 
yourself?" When Alden bore back the result of that first 
American interview — well, there was a scene in our early 
history that would have done justice to any stage ! It is said 
by scientific experts that every year there is an average of lOO 
perceptible earthquakes, and when John Alden brought that 
answerback from the maiden Priscilla, and delivered it to Stand- 
ish there was in Plymouth a perceptible earthquake. 

" Wildly he shouted, and loud : John Alden ! you have betrayed me ! 

Me, Miles Standish, your friend ! have supplanted, defrauded, betrayed me ! 

One of my ancesters ran his sword through the heart of Wat Tyler ; 

Who shall prevent me from running my own through the heart of a traitor ? 

Yours is the greater treason, for yours is a treason to friendship ! 

You, who have lived under my roof, whom I cherished and loved as a brother ; 

You, who have fed at my board, and drank at my cup, to whose keeping 

I have intrusted my honor, my thoughts the most sacred and secret, 

You too, Brutus ! ah, woe to the name of friendship hereafter 1 
Biiitus was Caesar's friend, and you were mine, but henceforward 
Let there be nothing between us save war, and implacable hatred." 

With an almost savage rancor stirring his passion, our fight- 
ing forefather, incensed with the bitterness of his failure, goes 
to the first Council of War, of which we have any record, to 
deal with the savage of the forest. God help the savage under 
such circumstances ! The Council is in session at Plymouth, 
and the poet says : 



62 

" Near them was standing an Indian, in attitude stern and defiant, 
Naked down to the waist, and grim and ferocious in aspect ; 
While on the table before them was lying unopened a Bible, 
Ponderous, bound in leather, brass-studded, printed in Holland, 
And beside it outstretched the skin of a rattlesnake glittered. 
Filled, like a quiver, with arrows ; a signal and challenge of warfare. 
Brought by the Indian, and speaking with arrowy tongues of defiance." 

Upon that scene Standish enters, and stung by his own 
grief, he inaugurates an Indian pohcy of rage and revenge. The 
poet tells us : 

" Then from the rattlesnake's skin, with sudden, contemptuous gesture. 
Jerking the Indian arrows, he filled it with powder and bullets 
Full to the very jaws, and handed it back to the savage. 
Saying, in thundering tones : ' Here, take it ! this is your answer ! ' " 

He stands there, in all the fierceness of his wrath, on the far 
edge of our eventful history, to demonstrate the abiding truth 
that brute force really settles nothing for the world. It is his- 
tory as well as poetry, that in 1623 an insolent chief with his 
savage associates defied and insulted Standish, sneering at the 
diminute stature of the Puritan captain, and boasting of his 
own superior size and strength. On the spot, instantly, the 
savage bravado and two of his companions were slain, and the 
first Indian hostility was for the moment crushed. It was, 
however, but that seed of blood, the harvest of which is not yet 
reaped. Every endeavor from that hour to this to tutor and 
discipline the Indian by ministration of powder and ball enforces 
the eternal verity that battle is never a finality. War at its 
utmost can only bring about the truce which enables peace to 
do its true work.- The crime against the Indian which mars with 
inhumanity our national career, began when Miles Standish 
dealt with him on a military rather than a moral basis. 

While admitting that the Pilgrim forefathers had many faults, 
those who come down from them claim this : that when the 
Mayflower anchored in Cape Cod Bay and sent out the shallop 
with Miles Standish in command to search for a place of settle- 
ment, and through him Plymouth was finally chosen, no better 
day's work was ever done in this world than that, for civilization 
and progress and humanity. 

A student was once asked to name the minor prophets, and 
his reply was that he didn't wish to make any invidious com- 
parisons. It may not be well to make any ancestral compari- 



63 

sons, but for a man to be depended upon for any emergency, 
Standish holds the first rank. 

He was always in dead earnest, and his position was never 
equivocal nor in doubt. He stood up for his own side, believing 
it to be the right side. He was against the other side, believing 
it to be the wrong side, and he never tried to discipline his friends 
by helping his enemies. He did not seek to advance pilgrim 
interests by alliance with savages, and never dreamed of improv- 
ing the condition of the New England Colony by promoting 
the Indian chiefs. By birth Standish is said to have been emi- 
nently respectable. He evidently thought well of his blue blood, 
and certainly he was among our very first and leading families. 
Indeed, we know of no firster family than that of Standish in 
this country. 

Not only was Miles Standish the first recognized soldier of 
New England — the first vindicator of law and order among us — 
the first prominent participator in that story of love never to be 
forgotten while Longfellow is read ; but he was also the first 
instance of a true " new departure," to borrow an expression 
occasionally heard in theological circles — a departure that marks 
in its change high and pefected character. Because the maiden 
Priscilla preferred the schoolmaster Alden to the soldier Stand- 
ish, the latter left Plymouth and his friends at white heat of 
anger to " paint the Indian red," as the reporter would be apt 
to express it. Rumor in those far days, like the newspaper of 
our own times, rarely told the truth about a public character. 
Rumor had Standish slain by a fatal Indian arrow, and so John 
Alden, at the supposed death, felt at liberty to wed Priscilla, and 
the happy day had arrived. To that nuptial festivity, all 
unbidden, and " like a ghost from the grave," Standish came ; 
" Clad in armor of steel, a sombre and sorrowful figure." He 
stood there, a changed man. The trusty sword of Damascus 
rested harmless in its scabbard. With gentle tones, unlike the 
harsh voice of command, to John Alden Standish said, " For- 
give me." Stretching out his open hand, Standish added : 

" I have been cruel and hard, but now, thank God ! it is ended." 

It was the first example on these shores of that ideal de- 
parture from partial good to better which exhibits growth ; a 
departure from discord to harmony — from alienation back to 
friendship — from hatred to love. 



64 

The poet tells that after that reunion of souls in the bonds of 
friendship, when the wedded ones went forth to the doorway 
and looked out, they saw 

" The familiar fields, the groves of pines and the meadows ; 
But to their eyes transfigured, it seemed as the Garden of Eden, 
Filled with the presence of God, whose voice was the sound of the ocean." 

Materialistic tendencies seek to shatter our faith and destroy 
our traditions. The apple of Newton that led to the knowl- 
edge of gravitation, the arrow of Tell that has endeared all 
haters of tyranny to the legends of the Alps, and the hatchet 
of Washington hardly less revered than his sword, have fallen 
before the brutal onslaught of facts. But nothing can rob our 
early idyl of that atmosphere of purity and joy of reconciliation, 
and tender trust in the Common Father of us all which is 
inseparable from that primitive New England wedding scene 
as described by Longfellow : 

" Happy husband and wife, and friends conversing together. 
Pleasantly murmured the brook, as they crossed the ford in the forest, 
Pleased with the image that passed, like a dream of love through its bosom, 
Tremulous, floating in air, o'er the depth of the azure abysses. 
Down through the golden leaves the sun was pouring his splendors, 
Gleaming through purple grapes, that, from branches above them suspended, 
Mingled their odorous breath with the balm of the pine and the fir-tree. 
Wild and sweet as the clusters that grow in the valley of Eschol. 
Like a picture it seemed of the primitive, pastoral ages, 
Jresh with the youth of the world, and recalling Rebecca and Isaac, 
Old and yet ever new, and simple and beautiful always, 
Love immortal and young in the endless succession of lovers. 
So through the Plymouth woods passed onward the bridal procession." 

The Pilgrim may be but a grim, gaunt figure in our misty 
and murky past, his descendants may be outnumbered in the 
land his father planted. The sternness of the Puritan creed, 
like the severity of the Puritan countenance, may have van- 
ished from the sound and sight of men, but his principles and 
example are our noblest inspiration. To-day, as in the glamor 
and delight of that remote scene of love and peace over which 
we never tire to linger, we are still loyal in admiration of brave 
men and pure women. 

The first soldier that trod our land, like the great general we 
laid away in his grave, with Sherman and Sheridan, generals with 
whom he fought, and Johnston and Buckner, generals against 



65 

whom he fought, walking beside his hearse. Standish and 
Grant by their lives tell us that the clasped hand of love is 
grander than the clenched hand of hate. To get hate out of 
the human heart by getting the warmth of love into it, so that 
at last the world may be swayed by the celestial impulse ! 
Ah ! for that the sun shines — for that the planets whirl around 
their centres — for that the universe was created — for that man 
was made in the divine image. 

Standish landed at Plymouth in 1620. He was buried at 
Duxbury in 1656, being ^2 years of age. He held his military 
title and civil office during life, but with his capture of Thomas 
Matox and the extinction of his liquor pestilence at Mount 
Wollerston, he seems to have closed his active career. He 
sheathed his sword which had been so servicable to the Colony 
in 1630 and became thereafter a man of peace. Upon Cap- 
tain's Hill, overlooking the heights of Manomah, the woods of 
Plymouth and the waters of the bay, he passed the remainder 
of his days, lifting his hand against no man. To his hospitable 
fireside John Alden often came. His children played with the 
children of John and Priscilla. On his farm Standish toiled and 
amassed a fortune of $1,500, a sum less than the cost of any an- 
nual feast made now in Pilgrim memory. Invited to head military 
expeditions on two occasions, one near the end of his life, he 
declined. His fighting days were over. His artillery practice by 
Bariffe lay unopened on the shelves. His three muskets hung 
unused upon the walls. His three Bibles, however, one for 
each musket, were well worn with constant use. Though Priscilla 
would not share with him the toils and duties of life, there came 
from over the sea, one Barbara, to be his mate and compan- 
ion. Though Miles Standish may never have entered into his 
Castles in Spain, nor have won the proud title and huge estates 
of which he held himself the true heir, his name for two hun- 
dred and sixty-six years has been connected with Carner and 
Bradford and Brewster and Winslow as founders of a nation. 
He has been revered by successive generations of Americans 
as a hero and soldier. He is remembered with tender interest 
as an actor in our earliest romance, and for all time he will be 
regarded by a grateful posterity as the strong " right arm " of 
the Pilgrims in their direst needs and stormiest trials. 



The following address was delivered before the Society, at 
its annual reception, held in the Art room, February 9, 1888, 
by Hon. John L. Swift, of Boston. 

The address was received with much favor by the large 
audience. 

"MILES STANDISH" 

BY 

Hon. John L. Swift. 



Ladies and Gentlemen — If the proper study of mankind be 
man, then whatever tends to add an iota of information with 
regard to the fundamental tests and traits by which cities are 
built up and civilization preserved must be regarded in the 
highest sense as scientific. 

We are to talk this evening for forty minutes upon incidents 
in the life of a resolute and heroic man of the past not with any 
object of historical accuracy, but simply as a study of character ; 
and therefore this talk may be regarded at least as semi-scien- 
tific, though candor compels me to admit there is rather more 
semi than science in it. 

In his work on logic Professor Jevons says that science is 
the result of that observation of facts which, by constancy of 
repetition, justifies an announcement of a general law. 

James Russell Lowell asserts that "Faith in God, faith in 
man and faith in work," is the short formula in which can be 
expressed the teachings of the New England founders. 

Results of observation of this formula give ground for the 
statement with the accuracy of law that as we have followed 
out this formula we have, as a people, succeeded, and as we 
have abandoned it we have decreased and degenerated in tone 
and in power. 

And it is far more valuable than any study of how distant 
the stars are or what occurred in the last transit of Venus, to 
ascertain the principle of conduct that will teach the descend- 
ants of a people that which, by living up to it, is the true way 
to prosperity and happiness. 



56 

And therefore it is well that respect and regard for the 
memory of the forefathers has not yet quite gone out of fashion 
in this nation. Indeed to keep forefathers' day in the night 
seems to be one of the most fashionable things of late that can 
be done. 

The New England annual dinner celebrated in the principal 
cities in this country to commemorate the disembarkation of the 
Mayflower, has become an American institution. It makes a 
sort of competitive examination of the ability and talents of 
the coming orator who delivers magnificent extemporaneous 
speeches that have been six weeks in preparation. Indeed, 
months are often employed in cramming for these dinners to 
cause the tables to roar with applause and laughter. And one 
of the orators not long since said that they were of such import- 
ance that they suspended the very operations of government 
and commanded the attention of the universe. 

On the last forefathers' day you listened, in Brooklyn, to 
Choate, to Gen. Sherman and Pierce of Massachusetts. In 
Philadelphia they listened to Wayland, to Depew and to Curtis. 
In New York they listened to Talmage and to Grady, who in 
his high praise of the Puritan character and in his elegant tribute 
to Abraham Lincoln, gave testimony that the new South over 
which he was so enthusiastic was a reality. 

Boston had the privilege of listening, amid the wildest 
enthusiasm, to the Honorable James G. Blaine, of Maine, who 
not only gave us his idea of the merits of the forefathers, but of 
the demerits of using manuscript as a dependence for either the 
preacher or the orator. 

This signal ability called out all over the land to commemo- 
rate an event that never lessens in importance means something. 
It is the testimony of sixty millions of people of their regard 
for the high purposes and the noble ideas of the founders of 
New England. And selections from one of the most picturesque 
poems ever written is proof that earnest and decided men that 
know just where they are and just what they want are the men 
always for an emergency. To such a man we are to be now 
introduced as presented to us in the verse of Longfellow. 

As history Longfellow's Standish will not stand the test of 
criticism, but as an insight of character it is both correct and 
admirable. 



57 

" In Old Colony days, in Plymouth the land of the Pilgrims, 
To and fro in a room of his simple and primitive dwelling, 
Clad in doublet and hose, and boots of Cordovan leather. 
Strode, with a martial air. Miles Standish the Puritan Captain." 

Miles Standish was a hero of no common order. His was 
the first name written on our martial roll of honor. He was 
the first among us to become conspicuously identified with 
incidents of love and war. He was the first defender, the first 
stalwart defender, of the New England Colony. He was a sad 
mourner at the burial of the first victim to the biting blasts of 
a New England winter. 

He was the first to suffer from misplaced affection and 
baffled devotion, making our first story of disappointment 
and chagrin. He was also the first leader in that standing 
army of twelve men " well-equipped," which finally became 
two million under Grant, fighting from the ridges of the Potomac 
to the banks of the Rio Grande, until the flag of the nation 
unsoiled and unopposed floated over every foot of American 
soil. 

" Is the is isable," was one of the profound questions 
debated not long ago by the transcendental philosophers at 
Concord. 

If it means to crowd into forty minutes the merits of such 
a man as Miles Standish, then the is before us "is not isable." 

Standish is memorable because he had the courage to back 
his opinions by all that a man could do. He had both pluck 
and idea. He had the quality of striking his enemy where it 
would do the most harm, of hitting hard and hitting often. 
There was not one particle of sentimentality or mushiness in 
Miles Standish. 

A young lady very much enamored of a young man said to 
him " I dote on you so that I could live all my life in a cottage 
with you on bread and water." 

" Well," said the noble young man, " you just hurry round 
and get the bread and I will do something once in a while in 
the water line and we will make a match and you can dote all 
you want to." There are a great many such people in the 
world and a great many churches and parties are carried on 
under such an arrangement, but Standish belonged to the bread 
party, or the working force. 



58 

Those who have traveled westward, after a day or two from 
the Atlantic coast, if it is in the season of autumn, looking out 
of the car window, their eyes will rest upon immense fields of 
corn, and for a day and a night and a day and a night again for 
a thousand miles with all the rapidity of steam they will whirl 
through these vast distances where the ripened grain that has 
taken in all through the season the golden rays of summer, 
gives it back in golden grain. Two thousand million bushels 
every year is garnered and the trade from it loads down your 
trains as they come to the coast, and mighty ships transport it 
across the ocean to feed the world. 

Now, Miles Standish was the pioneer in the corn trade. The 
first transaction in corn was accomplished by him in 1623. The 
Colony was in a state of peril from starvation and in the month 
of December he started out and landing near Yarmouth, although 
frozen up for a day or two, he returned with his load of corn, 
having bought and paid for it, and completing the first corn 
bargain, thus kept the Pilgrims alive. 

And not only was corn the staff of life but it was the 
currency of the Colonies. Edward Winslow was the first cattle 
king we ever had in this country. He imported the first stock, 
and the first transaction in beef of which I have any knowledge 
was a sale to Miles Standish, to be ^^ paid in corjie^" of six 
shares of the red cow that was owned there in common. 

So we are indebted to Gov. Winslow for the introduction 
of milk into this country. And who invented the theory or 
business of selling water under the title of milk we have not 
yet heard. But we do know who were the pioneers in the 
beef and corn industry, Standish and Winslow. 

The bread winners in the world are those generally that 
have the laboring oar upon them. Those that have the bread 
and corn provided for them, if they are ever called upon to lend 
a hand at hard work usually begin to read up some magazine 
article to find out whether life is worth living. But Standish 
belonged to the working force, and hard as it may seem, strange 
as the fact may be, it is the story of human life that the best 
qualities of men are called out only under sternest discipline. 

An American lady was in one of the English arsenals, and 
was shown a piece of ordnance. An officer who was in attend- 
ance said, "Madam, that cannon was taken from the Americans 



PROCEEDINGS 

AT THE 

Ninth Annual Meeting 

AND 

NINTH ANNUAL FESTIVAL 

OF 

THE NEWENGLAND SOCIETY 

IN THEXITY OE BROOKLYN, 



Including an Address delivered before the Society March 21, 188S, 

BY Hon. Robert D. Benedict, entitled, "Two Hundred 

and Fifty Years Ago." 



OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, COUNCIL, MEMBERS, 
STANDING COMMITTEE, 

and 

BY-LAW OF THE SOCIETY- 



BROOKLYN. 

1889. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE. 

Objects of the Society, .......... 3 

Terms of Membership, .......... 3 

Officers, ......... .... 4 

Directors, ............ 5 

Council, ............. 5 

Standing Committees, .......... 6 

Report of Ninth Annual Meeting, . . . . . . . .7 

Proceedings at the Ninth Annual Dinnner, ...... 13 

Bill of Fare, 16 

Address of President John Winslow, ........ 17 

" Hon. Henry Cabot-Lodge, ....... 23 

Rev. T. De Witt Talmage, D. D. 28 

" Hon. George Hoadley, ........ 35 

" Hon. John R. Brady, ....... 39 

Rev. R. S. Meredith, D. D.. 40 

" Hon. Steward L. Woodford, ...... 47 

Address by Hon. Robert D. Benedict, at the Annual Reception, . . 49 

Certificate of Incorporation, ......... 73 

By-Laws, ............. 77 

Honorary Members, .......... S3 

Life Members, ............ 83 

Annual Members, .......... S4 

Meetings of Society, ........... Sg 

Form of Bequest, ........... S9 



OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY. 



The New England Society in the City of Brooklyn is incorporated and 
organized to commemorate the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers ; to encourage 
the study of New England History ; to establish a library, and to promote 
charity, good fellowship and social intercourse among its members. 



TERMS OF MEMBERSHIP. 



Admission Fee, . - . . . $10.00 

Annual Dues, -..--. 5.00 

Life Membrship, besides Admission Fee, - - 50.00 

Payable at election, except Annual Dues, zvhich are payable in January of each year. 

Any member of the Society in good standing may become a Life Member 
on paying to the Treasurer at one time the sum of fifty dollars ; and thereafter 
such member shall be exempt from further payment of dues. 

Any male person of good moral character, who is a native or descendant 
of a native of any of the New England States, and who is eighteen years old 
or more, is eligible. 

If in the judgment of the Board of Directors, they are in need of it, the 
widow or children of any deceased member shall receive from the funds of the 
Society, a sum equal to five times the amount such deceased member has paid 
to the Society. 

The friends of a deceased member are requested to give the Historiographer 
early information of the time and place of his birth and death, with brief inci- 
dents of his life, for publication in our annual report. Members who change 
their address should give the Secretary early notice. 

[i;^°It is desirable to have all worthy gentlemen of New England decent 
residing in Brooklyn, become members of the Society. Members are requested 
to send application of their friends for membership to the Secretary. 
Address, 

THOMAS S. MOORE, Recording Secretary. 

102 Broadway, New York. 



OFFICERS. 

1889. 



President : 
JOHN WINSLOW. 



First Vice-President: Second Vice-President: 

CALVIN E. PRATT. BENJ. F. TRACY. 



Treasurer : 
CHARLES N. MANCHESTER. 



Recording Secretary: Corresponding Secretary: 

THOMAS S. MOORE. WILLIAM H. WILLIAMS. 



Historiographer : 
PAUL L. FORD. 



Librarian : 
CHARLES E. WEST, LL.D. 



DIRECTORS. 



Calvin E. Pratt. 
John Winslow. 



For One Year. 



Joseph F. Knapp 



Ransom H. Thomas. 
Chas. N. Manchester. 



For Two Years. 
Benjamin F. Tracy. A. C. Barnes. 

Henry W. Slocum. Frederic A. Ward. 

Nelson G. Carman, Jr. 



For Three Years. 
Benjamin D. Silliman. Hiram W. Hunt. 

George H. Fisher. William H. Williams. 

Ethan Allen Doty. 



For Four Years. 
William H. Lyon. Albert E. Lamb. 

William B. Kendall. Stewart L. Woodford. 

J. S. Case. 



COUNCIL. 



A. A. Low. 
A. M. White. 
S. B. Chittendek. 
A. F. Cross. 
Robert D. Benedict. 
Henry Coffin. 
Charles Pratt. 
Thomas H. Rodman. 
Augustus Storrs. 



Arthur Mathewson. 
W. H. Nichols. 
Francis L, Hine. 
H. W. Maxwell. 
Seth Low. 
Isaac H. Cary. 
H. H. Wheeler. 
W. A. White. 
Darwin R. James. 



J. R. Cowing. 

John Claflin. 

M. W. Robinson. 

J. S. T. Stranahan. 

Willard Bartlett. 

L. S. Burnham. 

Henry Earl. 
Jasper W. Gilbert. 
M. N. Packard. 



STANDING COMMITTEES. 



Finance : 
William H. Lyon, Geo. H. Fisher, 

Albert E. Lamb. 



Charity : 
Benjamin F. Tracy, Henry W. Slocum. 

J. F. Knapp. 



Invitations : 
Benjamin D. Silliman. John Winslow, 

Stewart L. Woodford. 



Amiual Dinner : 
William H. Williams, James S. Case, 

Ethan Allen Doty. 



Publications : 
Nelson G. Carman, Jr. William H. Williams. 

J. S. Case. 



Annual Receptions : 
President and Vice-Presidents. 



THE NINTH ANNUAL MEETING. 



The Ninth Annual Meeting of the New England Society, 
in the City of Brooklyn was held in the Directors' Room of 
the Academy of Music, on Wednesday Evening, December 
5, 1888. 

Mr. John Winslow, the President of the Society, called 
the meeting to order, and acted as Chairman. 

The minutes of the Eighth Annual Meeting, held Decem- 
ber 7, 1887, were read and approved. 

On motion, the following gentlemen, proposed by Mr. 
Winslow, were elected members of the Society : John R. Wil- 
marth, W, S. Logan, Rodney C. Ward, George M. Olcott, 
J. Spencer Turner. 

Mr. Charles N. Manchester, Treasurer of the Society, 
presented his Annual Report, showing a balance on hand of 
$15,645.75, deposited in the following institutions : 

South Brooklyn Savings Institution $3,000.50 

Dime Savings Bank 3,000.60 

Brookbm Savings Bank 3,000.45 

Williamsburgh Savings Bank 3.000.60 

City Savings Bank 2,542.47 

Brooklyn Trust Co 888.28 

$r5,645-75 

which was on motion approved, and ordered to be placed on 
file. There was appended to the Treasurer's Report, a certifi- 
cate signed by Wm. H. Lyon, the Chairman of the Finance 
Committee, that the same had been examined and found to be 
correct. 



The President read his Annual Report, which was as 
follows : 

THE ANNUAL REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT. 

As provided by the By-Laws the President submits his 
Annual Report. 

The Society has kept in view its declared purposes, which 
are to encourage the study of New England history, to estab- 
lish a library, to promote charity, good fellov/ship, and social 
intercourse among its members, and to commemorate the land- 
ing of the Pilgrim Fathers. 

The last Annual Dinner was, as usual, a success, both as to 
the quality of the dinner, and the brilliancy and high character 
of the speakers. That this was appreciated was obvious to all 
in attendance. The numerous applications for tickets to the 
next dinner give assurance of a large attendance. 

The Society has made this Annual Festival a notable event 
in Brooklyn. 

It is provided by Article 24 of the By-Laws, that if in the 
judgment of the Directors, they are in need of it, the widow 
or children of any deceased member shall receive from the 
funds of the Society a sum equal to five times the amount 
such deceased member has paid to the Society. 

There have been several occasions when help in this man- 
ner has been given, under the direction of the Committee on 
Charities. 

The report of the Secretary shows the total membership to 
be four hundred. It is desirable to have the membership 
increased. Let every member do what he can in this respect. 

The report of the Treasurer shows that there is in the 
Treasury at this date the sum of $15,645.75. Most of this 
sum is deposited in the five leading savings banks in the City 
of Brooklyn. This shows an increase of $1,139.54 for the year 
ending December i, 1888. 

The Historiographer reports the death of six members of 
the Society. They are as follows : 

James How, son of James How and Elizabeth Ball Willis, was born a 
Haverhill, Massachusetts, June 30th, 18 j 8. When five years of age he 
removed with his parents to Boston, and in 1832 came to Brooklyn to attend 
the school of Messrs. Putnam & Ames, but returned to Haverhill, and attended 
school there, on the breaking out of the cholera in this city. His education 
was completed at the famous Phillips' Academy, in Andover, Mass. 

He then returned to Brooklyn and entered the employment of his uncles, 
Calvin and Fisher How, with whom he remained for two years, and then 
became connected with the Brooklyn White Lead Company. At the end of a 



year or two, with a number of others, he organized the Union White Lead 
Company, of which he afterwards became President, and remained so till his 
death. He was a director in many Brooklyn corporatiens and institutions, and 
was one of the organizers and first trustees of the Collegiate Pyolytechnic 
Institute. 

Mr. How married Celestine Wells, daughter of Richard Wells, July 31st, 
1S39, by whom he had eight children. 

He died Tuesday, February 28th, i883, in the seventieth year of his age. 



Henry Evelyn Pierrepont, son of Hesekiah Beers and Anna Maria 
Constable) Pierrepont, was born in Brooklyn, August 8th, 1S08. He first 
attended the boarding-school of Mrs. Melmoth, of this city, and later that of 
H. Louis Mencel, of New York. 

After finishing his education Mr. Pierrepont assisted his father in the man- 
agement of his business affairs, and traveled in Europe, where he made a care- 
ful study of the municipal system of the cities. On his return he was appointed 
one of the Committee which first planned the laying out of Brooklyn, and from 
that time his interest and exertions have been largely devoted to the public, 
corporate and charitable affairs of our city. He was one of the original organ- 
izers of Greenwood Cemetery, of which he was several years and to the time of 
his death president. He was largely interested in the obtaining and managing 
of our present ferry facilities, of which he wrote and printed a valuable history, 
and was the President of the Union Ferry Company. He planned the embank- 
ment of what is now known as Columbia Heights. 

On December ist, 1841, he married Anna Maria Jay, daughter of Peter 
Augustus Jay, and a grand-daughter of John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the 
United States. He had six children, five of whom survive him. 

He died Wednesday, March 28th, 1888, in the eightieth year of his age. 

He was a leading member of the Episcopal Church, trustee of its funds, a 
delegate to its Conventions, and prominent and influential on its important 
committees. He was the trustee of many large funds, and was efficient, wise 
and faithful in their management. He held a high place in the respect and 
regard of the community. 

Alfred Smith Barnes, son of Eli and Susan (Morris) Barnes, of Soufh- 
ington, Conn., was born in New Haven, Connecticut, January 28th, 1817. In 
1827, on the death of his father, he went to Hartford, where he lived with his 
uncle, on whose farm he worked for some years, attending school at the same 
time. When sixteen years of age he obtained a position in the publishing firm 
of D. F. Robinson & Co. of that city, his remuneration being $30 per annum 
and his board. In 1835 the firm removed to New York, Mr. Barnes coming 
with them, and continuing in their employ for three years, at the end of which 
time he returned to Hartford, and founded the publishing firm of A. S. Barnes 
& Co. Beginning with the school-books of Prof. Davies and Mrs. Willard, the 
firm soon became the great school-book publishers of the country. The estab- 
lishment, as it enlarged, was first moved to Philadelphia, and eventually, in 
1845 was removed to New York, where it has since remained, though the man- 



lO 

ufacturing part of the business has been done in this city for the last 
few years. 

Mr. Barnes came to this city in 1846, residing first in Garden street, and 
later on Clinton avenue. He was one of the founders of the Clinton Avenue 
Congregational Church, and was connected with or interested in many of our 
charitable, educational and financial institutions. 

In 1S41 he married Harriet E. Burr, daughter of General Timothy Burr, of 
Rochester, by whom he had ten children, all of whom survived him. 

In 1883 he married Mrs. Mary M. Smith. 

He died February 17th, 188S, in the seventy-second year of his age. By 
his many charitable acts and upright business life he bears a good memory. 

John Tasker Howard, son of Joseph Howard, was born in Salem, Mass., 
December 28th, 1808. In 1828 he came with his father to this city, and soon 
entered with him into the firm of J. Howard & Son, which in time became one 
of the largest shipping firms in New York, chiefly engaged in the Russian and 
South American trade, and founding the Empire Line to New Orleans. The 
firm was among the first to send vessels to California, on the discovery of gold 
in that region, and also sent the first steamer that ever sailed from this country 
to Australia. 

Mr. Howard was till his death a prominent member of Plymouth Church, 
being one of the signers of the call to the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher to that 
church, and was interested in many other local institutions. He was an inti- 
mate friend of Gen. Fremont, and took a great interest in his canvas for the 
Presidency, as also in his command of the Division of the West, on the break- 
ing out of the Revolution, in which Mr. Howard rendered assistance in the 
arming of the troops. 

In 183 1 he married Miss Susan T. Raymond, daughter of Eliakim Ray- 
mond, of this city, who, with his five children, survive him. 

He died Thursday, March 22d, iSSS, in the eightieth year of his age. 

Amos Robbins, son of Nathan Robbins, was born in West Cambridge (now 
Arlington), Massachusetts, December 28th, 1817. Receiving the common 
school education of that time, he, at fourteen years of age, entered his brother 
Nathan's employment in the poultry trade, in the Fanueil Hall Market, in Bos- 
ton, with whom he remained for five years. In 1836, he left that city, and 
came to New York, where he established himself in the same business in Fulton 
Market, and soon built it into the chief house in the trade. Three years later 
he brought his younger brother from Boston, and in 1841 the firm became A. 
& E. Robbins, which it so continued for more than forty years. He was very 
successful, and amassed a large fortune in this business. It was the only firm 
in the city who could fill the order for the Sanitary Commission for poultry for 
our troops during the Rebellion. 

In 1837 Mr. Robbins married Adelia Martling, of Tarrytown, New York, by 
whom he had four children, two sons and two daughters, the former of whom 
alone survive him. 

He died October 12th, 188S, in the seventy-first year of his age, universally 
respected and esteemed. 



II 

Hon. John Greenwood, died on the nth day of December, 1887, in the 
ninetieth year of his age. 

Judge Greenwood was born in Providence, R. I., in 1798. Few men have 
been so long well known, respected and honored in our city and State. He 
was a diligent classical scholar, of good attainments, proficient in the best 
English literature, and in good measure familiar with the French and German 
languages, and was fond of Natural Science. But his love of his profession 
was paramount to all else, and he made all other knov/ledge subserve that ; 
thus he became a profoundly versed lawyer and jurist. Sagacious, logical, 
earnest, he was always effective as an advocate before a jury, or in argument 
and appeal to the Bench. On the Bench, as the first Judge of the City Court 
of Brooklyn, he was dignified, courteous, patient, upright and learned, showing 
fine analytical power and firmness in his decisions. Before a popular assembly, 
though never speaking for the mere sake of applause, he held the gratified at- 
tention of his audienee by the unaffected elegance and purity of his style, and 
the aroused and admiring interest he was sure to attract to his subject. We 
are, in a large measure, indebted to him for the charter, originally drafted by 
his own hand, which made Brooklyn a City. 

At a period earlier than this, he had been appointed, by Governor Bouck, 
Judge of cur County Court of Common Pleas ; and, under the charter, he was 
elected in 1843, Corporation Counsel; and in 1849, the first City Judge. In all 
these offices he made and maintained a good legal and judicial reputation. In 
later years, his known qualifications made him often Referee in very important 
cases. His career to the end was accompanied by a general appreciation of his 
influence and character ; and of his readiness to serve what might promote the 
growth of true refinement, and pure and cultured taste, the love of literature, 
a good education and philanthropy in our growing city. Hence we find him 
one of the founders, and long the President, of the Hamilton Literary Associ- 
ation, the First Vice-President of the Philharmonic Society, a Director from 
the beginning, and one of the Executive Committee of the Academy of Music, 
and of the Historical Society. 

He v/as also for several years a very useful member of the Board of Educa- 
tion, and an active Trustee of the City Hospital. 

Judge Greenwood was a warm and constant friend. Through his inter- 
course with men — many of them men of mark, — his studious habits, his stores 
of anecdotes, his observation of current events, and his conversational gifts, — 
he was an instructive and interesting companion. In his domestic relations, he 
was faithful and affectionate. 

To his close friends he would sometimes refer with pride and pleasure to the 
career of his father, who was an officer in the war of the Revolution. He felt 
a warm interest in our New England Society, and became a member the first 
year of its organization. 



12 



A MONUMENT TO PLYMOUTH PILGRIMS. 

A Solid Granite Pedestal surmounted by the Figure of Faith. 
Other Emblematic Statues. 

The loft}^ monument v/hich crowns one of the highest hills 
in the historic town of Plymouth, erected to commemorate the 
landing of the Pilgrims, has been completed. It does not mark 
any particalar spot sacred to the memory of the Pilgrims, but 
is intended in a general way to signalize a great event in the 
Nation's history. It was begun in 1859, when ^^^^ corner-stone 
was laid on the 2d of August, with impressive ceremonies, 
including addresses by Richard Warren, Esq., of New York, 
President of the Pilgrim Society ; Ex-Governor N. P. Banks, 
and Colonel John T. Heard, Grand Master of the Masonic 
Grand Lodge of Massachusetts. A box containing interesting 
records was placed beneath the stone by the late Dr. Nathaniel 
B. Shurtleff, of Boston. 

The monument as it now stands complete has not cost far 
from $200,000, and, with the exception of one tablet, has been 
the work of the Hallowell Granite Company. It is solid 
granite throughout, and consists of an octagonal pedestal 
forty-five feet high, upon which stands the figure of " Faith," 
thirty-six feet high, resting one foot on Plymouth Rock, and 
holding in her left hand the open Bible, while the right hand, 
uplifted, points heavenward to emphasize the meaning. The 
pedestal has four large and four small faces. Upon the for- 
mer are tablets bearing the names of the founders of the 
Colony and historic facts in connection therewith, while from 
the smaller faces project four buttresses, or wing pedestals. 
Upon each of these is seated a figure in heroic size, represent- 
ing with the figure of "Faith," the principles of the founders. 
These figures are " Morality," " Education," "Freedom " and 
"Law," and on the faces of the pedestal at their feet are alto- 
relief tablets, representing " The Embarkation at Delft Haven," 
"The Signing of the Social Compact in the Cabin of the May- 
flower," " The Landing at Plymouth," and " The First Treaty 
with the Indians.'' The sides of the wing pedestals have 
figured tablets, carrying out the idea of the figures above 
them. 

The pedestal and its tablets are the result of contributions 
from all over the country. The figure of " Faith " was the 
gift of Governor Oliver Ames, and its cost about $32,300. 
Toward the figure of " Morality " the State of Massachusetts 
appropriated the sum of $10,000, and for the accompanying 



13 

alto-relief the State of Connecticut $3,000. The figure " Edu- 
cation," with its tablet, was the gift of Robert Mather, Esq., 
of Hartford, Conn., while for that of " Freedom," with its tablet, 
an appropriation was secured from the United States Govern- 
ment, mainly through the efforts of the Hon. John D. Long. 
" Law " and its tablet were paid for by contributions from leading 
members of the legal profession throughout the country. The 
pedestal was completed and the figure " Faith " placed in posi- 
tion in 1877, and in 1878 " Morality " was added. "Educa- 
tion " followed not long after, but it was not until the time 
previously named that the figures of " Law " and " Freedom " 
completed the monument. Of the grandest of these memo- 
rials — the " Statue of Faith " — Governor Long eloquently said 
in a recent oration : " Her eyes look toward the sea. Forever 
"she holds upon its waves the incoming ' Mayflower ;' she sees 
^* the Pilgrims land. They vanish, but slie, the monument of 
" their faith, remains, and tells their story to the world. This 
*' our generation too shall pass away, and its successors for 
^' centuries to come ; but sJie will stand, and, overlooking our 
" forgotten memory, will still speak of them and of their 
" foundation of the Republic on the Plymouth Rocks of Lib- 
^' erty. Law, Morality and Education." 

The dedication of the finished memorial is expected to 
take place in August, 1889, and the Society intends to make 
the ceremonies of a character long to be remembered. 

This Society has contributed to the cost of the monument 
and should be represented on the notable occasion. I have 
received intimations that a delegation sent by our Society 
would be received with suitable hospitality by the Committee 
in charge. I therefore recommend that the Society appoint a 
suitable number of its members to attend the celebration. 

(Signed) John Winslow, 

President. 
Dated December 5th, 1888. 



On motion of Mr. Silliman, the President was authorized 
to appoint a delegation of ten members to attend the meeting 
of the Pilgrim Society, at Plymouth, in August next. 

On motion the Chairman was authorized to appoint a com- 
mittee of three to nominate five candidates for Directors of 
the Society for four years. 

The Chair appointed Messrs. Hunt, Silliman and Barnes. 



14 

Such Committee reported the following canditates : Wm. 
H. Lyon, Wm. B. Kendall, Albert E. Lamb, Stewart L. 
Woodford, J. S. Case. 

On motion the President was authorized to cast a ballot in 
favor of Wm. H. Lyon, Wm. B. Kendall, Albert E. Lamb> 
Stewart L. Woodford, and J. S. Case, to hold office as 
Directors for four years. 

The ballot was so cast, and the above-named gentlemen 
were declared duly elected. 

On motion of Judge Pratt, it was resolved that the Presi- 
dent be added to the Committee to attend the meeting of the 
Pilgrim Society. 

The Committee on Invitations made a verbal report. 
The Dinner Committee made a verbal report. 

On motion adjourned. 

THOMAS S. MOORE, 

Recording Secretary. 



PROCEEDINGS AND SPEECHES 

AT THE 

NINTH ANNUAL DINNER. 

Friday, December 21, 1888. 

In couinicmoration of the Ttvo Hundred and Sixty-eighth 
Anniversary of the Landing of the Pilgrims. 



The Ninth Annual Dinner of the New England Society 
in the City of Brooklyn, was held in the Assembly Rooms of 
the Academy of Music, and in the Art Room adjoining, on 
Friday evening, December 21, 1888. 

The reception was held in the Art Room, and at six 
o'clock the dinner was served. 

Two hundred and seventy-three gentlemen were seated at 
the tables. 

The Presiden, Hon. John Winslow, presided. 

Upon his right sat HoN. HENRY Cabot LODGE, HON. 
Stewart L. Woodford, Rev. T. De Witt Talmadge, 
D. D., Hon. Theo. Roosevelt and Hon. Wm. H. Murtiia, 

On the left of the President sat Hon. John R. Brady, 
Hon. Benjamin D. Silliman, Hon. Geo. Hoadlex, Rev. 
R. R. Meredith, D. D., Rev. H. Price Collier and Hon. 
John W. Hunter. 



i6 

The members of the Society were seated as follows : 

Table A. — William C. Wallace, James E. Dean, Benj. C. Dean, Arthur 
H. Lowe, Thomas E. Pearsall, Richard S. Barnes, Chas. A. Richardson, Dr. 
J. E. Richardson, A. J. Nutting, Edwin Sherman. J. N. Kalley, N. F. Bon, 
George A. Boynton, John E. Jacobs, Henry Elliott, H. H. Beadle, James H. 
Thorp, S. S. Beard, Thomas S. Thorp, Geo. A. Evans, Geo. S. Small, Wm. J. 
Coombs, W. H. Nichols, Sanford H. Steele. D. H. Cornell, W. S. Sillcocks, 
John Y. Culyer, W. W. Goodrich, Geo. F. Gregory, David Barnett, Wm. C. 
Pate, W. H. H. Childs, N. Townsend Thayer, Quincy A. Atwood. 



Table B. — Charles N. Manchester, H. B. Moore, Spencer Swain, A. de 
Riesthal, Edward F. Gaylor, Arthur R. Jarrett, William C. Bowers, Franklin 
Allen, Thomas S. Moore, Robert Foster, Isaac H. Carey, W. L. Vandervoort, 
Walters. Badger, Edward K. Sombom, Edwin H. Corey, John A. Tweedy, 
Chas. K. Wheeler, Nelson G. Carman, Jr., H. D. Polhemus, William Hester, 
Alden S. Swan, Wm. M. Van Anden, William Merrill, John L. How, Andrew 
Jacobs, Henry Pratt, C. B. Davenport, F. E. Taylor, Wm. T. Lawrence, John 
P. Adams, George C. Bradley, Clarence Vose, Thomas H. Unckles, Joel W. 
Hyde. 

Table C— H. W. Slocum, Edgar M. Cullen, Wm. B, Kendall, Williard 
Bartlett, N. H. Clement, Jesse Johnson, T. L. Woodruff, Wm. M. Dykman, 
Edward F. Knowlton, Thomas A. Buffum, Geo. W. Mead, Edward Fackner, 
Leonard Moody, John N. Partridge, William J. Behan, Chauncey Marshall, 
George P. Merrill, A. E. Lamb, Charles S. Higgins, William B. Davenport, 
James C. Bergen, Josiah T. Mareau, Charles J. Patterson, Samuel O. Blood, 
Charles F. Lawrence, J. H. Noyes, Henry F. Noyes, H. W. Slocum, Jr., John 
G. Jenkins, Elihu Spicer, Augustus Van Wyck, Samuel McLean, Samuel W. 
Boocock, William C. DeWitt. 



Table D. — James S. Case, Charles A. Moore, Rueben Leland, Frank 
Squier, Henry R. Heath, John R. Wilmarth, Joseph B. Elliott, J. H. Farring- 
ton, C. B. Lawrenre, F. B. Bassett, R. H. Thomas, J. B. Hamilton, H. A. 
Tucker, Jr.. F. De Witt Talmage, Chas. H. Requa, Charles B. Tucker, H. A. 
Tucker, Charles M. Stafford, L S. Tucker, L L. Bragdon, W. B. Boorum, J. 
A. Kimball, J. S. James, A. S. Higgins, Wm. H. Hill, R. Proddow, Eugene 
F. O'Connor, A. B. Atkins, E. L. Maxwell. 



Table E. — John B. Woodward, R. D. Benedict, Geo. H. Prentiss, Wm. 
G. Creamer, Wm. Coit, Louis Saulnier, Wm. D. Wade, E. H. Kellogg, G. S. 
Hutchinson, Dr. J. S. Johnson, Eugene Blackford, J. P. Wallace, S. E. Howard, 
C. E. Staples, Wm. H. Taylor, S. V. Lowell, Henry Coffin, James S. Bailey. 
Charles S. Parsons, H. S. Stewart, Wm. Sullivan, Wm, Adams, E. F. Beadle, 
Nelson J. Gates, Wm. T. Cross, A. F. Cross, William Zeigler, C. M. Pratt, F. 
B. Pratt, F. L. Babbott, W. O. Pratt, W. S. Perry, Charles Pratt. 



17 

Table F.— Ethan Allen Doty, J. S. T. Stranahan, John A. Taylor, C. D. 
Wood, Howard O. Wood, C. S. Brainerd, Jr., C. N. Hoagland, A. W. Follett, 
George Follett, James H. Pratt, Wilber R. Maben, Henry S. Deshon, Edwin 
Packard, C. H. Southard, F. H. Lovell, George M. Nichols, Rufus L. Scott, 
James H Pittenger, Henry L. Coe, Daniel P. Morse, W. W. Buttle, Chas. W. 
House, John T. Randall, J. W. Brunn, George W. Almy, Charles S. Wilbur, 
Edward H. Hobbs, William H. Waring, William Berri. 

Table G.— William H. Williams, A. D. Baird, Frank Sperry, William J. 
Taylor, M. C. Ogden, C. S. Van Wagoner, Geo. J. Laighton, M. W. Robinson, 
Is^ac N. Ford, E. M. Alden, William Cromwell, John Holmes, J. Adams, D, 
Webster, William Winslow, George F. Dobson, Darwin R. James, Benj. F. 
Tracy, John F. Henry, E. Spicer, Henry Emerson, James B. Dewson, Benj 
Estes, A. J. Perry. 

Table H. — Joseph F. Knapp. Silas B. Dutcher, J. E. Searles, Jr., Lowel 
M. Palmer, Anthony H. Creagh, Fred. W. Wurster, Warren E. Smith, Alfred 
Hodges, Daniel T, Wilson, R. Morrison Gray, Richard Major, Daniel L. 
Northup, George L. Pease, Marvin T. Lyon, A. Melvine Snedeker, William 
H. Lyon, Jr., Valentine Snedeker, William H. Lyon, Albon Man, Samuel S. 
Utter, Rev. N. Maynard, E. C. Wadsworth, A. C. Hallam, C. Mortimer Wiske, 
Joseph Applegate, Frank W, Young. F. S. Driscoll, J. B. Clement, Butler 
Griffiths, Joseph P. Knapp, B. R. Corwin, A. L. Bassett, John M. Crane, 
Alonzo Slote. 



i8 



BILL OF FARE. 



Oysters. 

Soups. 
Broth Imperial. Clear Green Turtle. 

Side Dish. 

Timbales diplomate. 

balmon manniere. Fried Smelts. 

Potatoes, English style. 

Joint. 

Filet of Beef. Piedmond fashion. 

Spinach. 

Entrees. 

Young Turkey with truffles, Chevreuse style. 

French Peas. 

Sweetbread, Grammont fashion. 

Kidney-beans. 

Terrapin, Maryland style. 



Punch Dalmatie. 



Game. 
Canvas-back Duck. Quails. 

Cold. 

Goose Liver pate with Jelly. 

Lettuce Salad. 

Sweets. 

Plum Pudding with Rum. 

Macedoine of Fruit. Wafers Chantilly. 

Pyramids. 

Fancy Ice Cream. 
Mixed Cakes. Cheese Fruits. 

Coffee. 

December 21st, 18S8. Delmonico's 



19 

When the company had assembled at the tables, Rev. H. 
Price Collier, pronounced the following grace : 

Almighty God, who, in the holy days of peril and persecu- 
tion, kept our fathers true, we ask Thee to keep their Christian 
children in these softer days. In days of peace to keep us 
calm ; in days of prosperity, to keep us true ; in days of power, 
to keep us magnanimous, kindly, charitable, but firm. 

We thank Thee for all Thou hast done to us in the days 
past, and in these present days. We ask Thy blessing on ac- 
count of Him, for Christ, His sake. Amen. 



ADDRESS OF HON. JOHN WINSLOW, THE PRESI- 
DENT OF THE SOCIETY. 

Gentlemen of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, 
Guests and Friends : 

On this, the ninth anniversary of our Society, and the 268th 
of the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, we are assembled to 
honor ourselves by honoring them. 

Our Society is prosperous, and has in its treasury $15,645.75, 
and no debts. This shows an increase of $1,139 54 over last 
year. Our By-laws promise, in case of need to pay the widow 
or children of any deceased member " a sum equal to five times 
the amount such deceased member has paid to the Society." 
Our ability to keep this promise is assured by the good condi- 
tion of our treasury. Ours is a case where a surplus is not an 
affliction, but rather a comfort to the widow and the orphan. 
{Lang J iter'). As descendants of New England stock, while we 
make no narrow comparisons with men of other descent, we 
rest quite content with the place assigned us in history by a 
kind Providence. {Applause). Just here it is proper to say 
that there is one with us here to-night of whom we are justly 
proud, and whom we cordially greet as a New Englander, and 
as a loyal, earnest member of our Society; of high character 
and intelligence, the Hon. Benjamin D. Silliman, our President 
emeritus, who, though a little past middle life, is nimble of 
step and young in heart. Long may he be spared to cheer us 
by his presence. {Loud applause). 



20 

The day we celebrate is of deep significance. Many orators 
and eminent writers have set forth the shining virtues of the 
Pilgrim Fathers. Overlooking none of these, they had one 
notable trait — clear grit — that served them well in every trial 
and hardship that beset them. It required grit to stand for 
the faith God had given them, amid bitter persecutions in 
their native land, and again to leave their native shores for 
Holland, a strange country. It required clear grit to stay in 
Holland twelve years amid Dutch environments, and again to 
leave Holland to establish a home amid the dangers of Amer- 
ican forests, upon the shores ot Plymouth ; and again, when at 
sea, to put back twice because of the alleged unseaworth- 
iness of the Speedwell, and then to abandon that ship and 
accept closer and more uncomfortable quarters on the crowded 
Mayfiozuer ; and again, before landing, to make a compact of 
self government and home rule ; and again, to meet and con- 
tend with the jealous savages, who were not inclined to look 
with favor upon Christian civilization ; and again, to face dis- 
ease in the first winter of their stay in Plymouth, that cut off 
in death one-half of their slender number ; and again, when the 
Mayflotver left Plymouth for England in April, 1621, we find 
not one of their reduced number returning with her ; and again, 
to meet the machinations of enemies in England and of others 
who came among them, compassing their destruction. These 
and other trials and dangers developed in the Pilgrim character 
qualities of a high order, not the least of which was clear grit. 
These praises must include also the Pilgrim Mothers, who 
faced equal danger and showed equal fortitude. It must have 
been a representative Pilgrim woman who is referred to in an 
incident of the period when there could be seen an inscription 
on a Woolwich tombstone, that served in an amusing Avay, to' 
illustrate the clear grit of a widow, who had her own ideas,, 
separate and apart from her late husband. The departed hus- 
band left orders that she must have lettered on his headstone 
some lines which should include the words, " Prepare to follow 
me." The recalcitrant widow, remembering well his lordship's 
frailties, obeyed the order, but added this postcript : 

" To follow you I'm not content. 
Until I know which way you went." 



21 

{Merriment). It is said that in later days her pastor persuaded 
her to let him remove the gritty lines. It seems to be the 
lot of important public movements, and of those engaged in 
them, to be largely misunderstood. The Pilgrims have not 
escaped this law. But researches are bringing into clearer 
light obscure points. In this year two ably edited books have 
appeared, both useful in the respect referred to. One is the 
" History of the Pilgrim Republic," by Goodwin ; the other, 
"The Puritan Age," by Rev. George E. Ellis; both published 
in Boston. A suggestive example of how public men, even 
in our time, may be misapprehended, has lately appeared ; it 
refers to the late Rev. Theodore Parker, of Boston, a well known 
very able Unitarian minister, radical in all things, and never 
suspected of Trinitarian leadings. Mr. Higginson, in a recent 
address, referring to Mr. Parker, stated, that on looking at the 
last edition of the one great dictionary of biography of the 
world, the French " Biographie Generale," you will find that 
Theodore Parker was an eminent Boston clergyman, who de- 
voted his life to vindicating the inspiration of the Scriptures, 
and the Deity of our Lord Jesus. Quite in line with this sort 
of accuracy was a statement in a foreign newspaper that life is 
made miserable in the city of New York because several tribes 
of Indians live there, whose chiefs stay in a place called Tam- 
many Hall, that their stoutest opponents are the Irish, who 
manage to hold their own pretty well, and something more ; 
that these parties are apt to have a scrimmage at the coming 
of every new moon. {Laughter). 

If the Pilgrim Fathers secured reward for heroic action, it 
was not in exemption from harsh criticism and unjust state- 
ment. It may be as Cicero intimates in " De Senectute," that 
one of the chief rewards of a useful life is the felicity one en- 
joys in the life beyond, that comes from the knowledge that 
his good works and high achievements here are remembered 
and appreciated by those he leaves behind. If this be so, then 
the Pilgrims in their celestial life have the sweet satisfaction of 
of seeing the great results secured by their labors gratefully ap- 
preciated, and which are emphasized to-day by a republic pro- 
tecting 70,000,000 of people. The compact on the Mayflower 
rested upon principles broad enough to include home rule and 



22 

constitutional liberty, and also strong and sound enough to 
exclude, on the other hand, the plottings of anarchy against 
law and order. Of this compact John Quincy Adams remarked, 
in 1802 : "This is, perhaps, the only instance in human history 
of that positive, original, social compact which speculative 
philosophers have imagined as the only legitimate source of 
government. Here was a unanimous and personal assent by 
all individuals of the community to the association by which 
they became a nation. The settlers of all the former European 
colonies had contented themselves with the powers conferred 
upon them by their respective charters, without looking beyond 
the seal of the royal parchment for the measure of their rights 
and the rule of their duties. The founders of Plymouth had 
been impelled by the peculiarities of their situation to examine 
the subject with deeper and more comprehensive research." 

In maintaining these principles, let us recognize every val- 
uable help and contribution from every man of whatever race, 
wdio is a good citizen. It is cause for congratulation that the 
strength of our constitutional system has again just been 
demonstrated by another National election, which, though 
warmly contested, is followed by peace and acquiescence 
throughout the land. {^Applmtsc^ 

We are favored by distinguished guests, who will address 
us from the North and the South, the East and the West. Such 
a presence is a reminder that the people of this country have 
irrevocably determined to accept the advice of Daniel Web- 
ster on a certain memorable occasion — to maintain " Liberty 
and union now and forever, one and inseparable. {General 
applause)' 

You will now please rise in your places and drink to the 
following toast : 



THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES." 
(This toast was drunk standing.) 



23 

{The President then resumed) — The next regular toast is: 

"THE DAY WE CELEBRATE."^ 

It is with much pleasure that I introduce the distinguished 
gentleman who will respond to this toast. He is now in public 
life, a representative in Congress from the State of Massachu- 
setts. I need not add that he is an author of high repute, of 
several works of a biographical, historical and literary charac- 
ter. Let me present the Hon. Henry Cabot Lodge, of Massa- 
chesetts. {Cheers). 

ADDRESS OF THE HON. HENRY CABOT LODGE. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Neiu England Society : 

There is one toast to which no son of New England can 
ever refuse to respond ; one sentiment to which he must 
always answer. When the President of a New England 
Society looks toward any one of us, and says, " I give you 
Forefather's Day," even the most modest — and all true sons 
of New England suffer from excess of that desirable quality — 
even the most modest among us must rise and speak. Those 
two simple words have a world of meaning to the children of 
the Pilgrim and the Puritan. Mathematics symbolizes the 
unknown by a single letter, and expresses infinity by another. 
So when we meet upon this Anniversary, our imagination 
gathers into those two words all that we mean by New 
England. For us they stop the hurrying tide of daily life 
and open the leaves of memory's book. In them we hear 
again the solemn music of the wind among New England's 
pines. When those magic words are uttered, the murmur of 
the river sand, the roar of the mountain torrents, the crash of 
the surf upon the ledges, and the gentle lapping of the sum- 
mer shower upon the shingle, sound once more in our ears. 
Again we see the meadows green and shining with the touch 
of Spring, and the rocky hillsides brilliant with the golden 
rod, or glowing in the purple flush of Autumn. All the 
scenes that we knew in childhood, and that in manhood we do 



24 

not forget, rise up before us. It is but a little corner of the 
great land which we call our own, and yet we love it. We 
repeat the words and turn again the pages of memory ; the 
landscape fades, and the figures of the past are before us. We 
pass out of the eager, bustling present, and are once more in 
touch with the strong race which clung to the rocky coast 
until they made it their own, and whose children, and whose 
children's children have forced their way across the continent 
carrying with them the principles and beliefs of the fore- 
fathers. The Pilgrim and the Puritan whom w^e honor to- 
night were men who did a great work in the world. They had 
their faults and shortcomings, but they were not slothful in 
business, and they were most fervent in spirit. They founded 
prosperous commonwealths, and built up goverments of laws, 
and not of men. They carried the torch of learning undimmed 
through the early years of settlement. They planted a school- 
house in every village, and fought always a good fight for 
ordered liberty, and for human rights. Their memories shall 
not perish, for 

" The actions of the just 

Smell sweet and blossom in the dust." 

I have read, sir, that the Puritans and the Pilgrims, among 
their other virtues, did not number that of tolerance. Hostile 
critics have indeed insinuated that there was something not 
unlike persecution for opinion's sake in early New England. 
But however it may have been at that time, in these latter 
days, it has been the characteristic of New England to cherish 
freedom of speech, and nowhere is a greater latitude found 
than at these very New England dinners. No one, so far as 
my observation goes, ever seems to feel restricted by the senti- 
ment to which he is asked to answer, even when it is as novel 
as the one you have kindly assigned to me. There is a wide 
field open here before each one of us, among subjects of 
present interest. We might try to discover what was the mat- 
ter with the Democratic majority in Brooklyn. [^Laughter.'] 
We might direct our inquiries to the authorship of the Mur- 
chison letter, and extend our researches by endeavoring to 
determine why Lord Sackville answered it. Or we might 



25 

construct a Cabinet for General Harrison. \_Laughtcr.'] Here 
we have untrodden ground, for no one has hitherto offered 
any suggestions on this subject, and the Httle that has been 
said is monotonous from its entire sameness. Best of all, 
however, would be a discourse on the tariff. ("No/ no/") 
I see your eagerness ; I see how anxious you all are to hear it. 

As Shakspeare say : 

" I see you stand 
Like greyhounds in the slips, 
Straining upon the start." 

[Laug/iter.'] But unfortunately for me, I have thrown away 
the forty or more able speeches I have recently made on that 
topic, because I felt like the Western man who, on being asked 
why he had killed his mother, replied that he did not think it 
would pay to winter her. [Laug'/iter.'] Speaking of the tariff, 
however, reminds me that there has been an election. I 
should like, of course, to point out its lessons. Pointing out 
the lessons of an election is always pleasant, but it is one- 
sided, for I have noticed that it is an exercise in which the 
winners are prone to indulge without much aid from the van- 
quished. I should like to preach to you on this text, for we 
New Englanders all have too much of the old Puritan blood 
not to like to preach, especially to somebody else. But there 
is one phase of the election which I think reaches far beyond 
party, if we take the trouble to go a little beneath the surface. 
Do not be alarmed ; I am not going to deliver a discourse ; I 
am merely going to offer a few definitions. The phase of the 
election to which I refer is the strong American feeling that 
was developed during the canvass ; not in noise and shouts, 
but in regard to many vital issues. It is a feeling which, in 
my opinion, is going, moreover, to last. The war for the 
Union, and the issues springing from it, have been settled. 
While they lasted they overshadowed everything else. But 
all the time other questions have been growing up with the 
growth of the Nation, and are now coming to the front for 
decision. It is our duty to settle them not only in the right 
way, but in a thoroughly American fashion. By Americanism 
I do not mean that which had a brief political existence more 
than thirty years ago. That movement was based on race and 



26 

sect, and was thoroughly un-American, and failed, as all un- 
American movements have failed in this country. True Ameri- 
canism is opposed utterly to any political divisions resting on 
race and religion. To the race or to the sect which as such 
attempts to take possession of the politics or the public educa- 
tion of the country, true Americanism says, " Hands off !" 
The American idea is a free church in a free State, and a free, 
unsectarian public school in every ward and in every village, 
with its doors wide open to the children of all races and of 
every creed. It goes still further, and frowns upon the con- 
stant attempt to divide our people according to origin or 
extraction. Let every man honor and love the land of his 
birth, and the race from which he springs and keep their 
memory green. It is a pious and honorable duty. But let us 
have done with British-Americans, and Irish-Americans, and 
German-Americans, and so on, and be all Americans ; nothing 
more, and nothing less. If a man is going to be an American 
at all, let him be so without any qualifying adjectives ; and if he 
is going to be something else, let him drop the word 
" American " from his personal description. {Great applause?)^ 
As there are sentiments and beliefs like these to be cherished, 
so there are policies which must be purely and wholly Ameri- 
can, and to " the manner born " if we would have them right 
and successful. True Americanism recognizes the enormous 
gravity of the social and labor problems which confront us. 
It believes that the safety of the Republic depends upon well- 
paid labor, and the highest possible average of individual well- 
being. It believes that the right solution of this problem 
should be sought without rest and without stay, and that no 
device, public or private, of legislation, or of individual effort, 
which can tend to benefit and elevate the great wage-earning 
masses of this country should be left untried. It sets its face 
rigidly against the doctrine of the Anarchist and the Com- 
munist, who seek to solve the social problems not by patient 
endeavor, but by brutal destruction. " That way madness 
lies," and such attempts and such teachings, barbarous and 
un-American as they are, must and will be put down with a 
strong and unflinching hand, in the name of the home and the 
church and the school, and of all that makes up civilization 



27 

and the possibility of human progress. \^Great applause. \ In 
the great public lands of the West, an American policy sees 
one of the safeguards of the Republic. It opposes the further 
use of these lands to invite immigration, or to attract specula- 
tion. They should be the heritage of the American people, 
and not a bait to draw a surplus population that we do not 
want. [Applause.'] The true American policy goes further, 
and believes that immigration should not only not be stimu- 
lated, but that it should be restricted. The pauper and the 
criminal, the diseased and the vicious, the Anarchist, the Com- 
munist and the Mormon should be absolutely shut out, while 
the general flow of immigration should be wisely and judi- 
ciously checked. It is the American policy to admit to the 
Union the great Territories of the West as fast as they can 
fulfil the conditions of Statehood ; but it is not the American 
policy to admit an un-American Territory with a population 
of Mexicans who speak Spanish, or Utah with a people who 
defy our laws and maintain a barbarous and corrupting system 
of marriage. When these two Territories are thoroughly 
Americanized, they can come in with the rest, and take part 
in our government, but not before! [Applause.] It is the 
American policy never to meddle in the affairs of other nations, 
but to see to it that our attitude toward the rest of the world 
is dignified, and that our flag is respected in every corner 
of the earth, and backed by a navy which shall be an honor 
to the American name. [Applause.] Last, and greatest 
of all, true Americanism demands that the ballot-box every- 
where shall be kept pure and inviolate, even if it takes the 
whole force of the United States to make it so. The peo- 
ple's confidence in the decision of the ballot is the only 
guarantee we have of the safety of our institutions, and we do 
not now guard it as we ought. It is to these things that the 
American people are looking, and while they have no ignorant 
contempt for the experience of other nations, they are firm in 
the faith that they must settle their own problems in their 
own way, in accordance with their own conditions, and the 
light of their own ideas and beliefs. In that faith they will 
move on to do battle with the problems and the difficulties 
which they in common with all mankind must face. They 



28 

will move on with a high and confident spirit ; they will 
extinguish the last traces of sectional differences, and if they 
are true to themselves, they will do the best work that it has 
ever been given to any people on earth to do, \Treme7idous 
applause?^ 



President Winslow : — The next regular toast is : 
"THE DESCENDANTS OF THE PILGRIMS— they 

ARE TO BE CONGRATULATED FOR PRESERVING AND 
CHERISHING THE GOOD QUALITIES OF THEIR ANCES- 
TORS." 

It is difficult for me to say whether the distinguished gen- 
tleman who will respond to this toast is better known in 
Brooklyn than outside of it, for it seems to be the fact that 
the products of no man in our modern pulpit are so generally 
read as his. It gives me great pleasure to present the Rev. T. 
De Witt Talmage. 

ADDRESS OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE. 

What an honored month is December! the month of the 
two greatest landings the world ever saw or ever will see — the 
landing of the Christ of the old world, and the landing of 
political redemption in the new world ! Down to the cradle 
of straw the Christmas star pointed. Down to the cradle of 
rock all the stars of this December night are pointing. Until 
time shall be no more, let the two landings be celebrated by 
banquet and in song. What a transformation of scene it 
would be if by a rap or two on these tables, all of these 
beaming guests of to-night vanished, and the mighty New 
Englanders of the past took their places. I risk it, and give 
two raps, and these doors open, and no sooner have we van- 
ished than the departed mighty ones of New England come 
in and take their places at this New England dinner. The 
first who enter are Miles Standish, and the Robinsons, and the 
Bradfords, and the Brewsters, and their fellow passengers, a 



29 

little decrepit from hardship and exposure, leaning on staffs 
made out of pieces of the Mayflozver that brought them across 
the sea, and they take their places around these tables. And 
following them come in James Otis, with his almost superna- 
tural charm of speech, and John Adams, whose words were 
the ringing of the Independence bell ; and Increase Mather, 
the giant of New England pulpits, and the men of Faneuil 
Hall who startled echoes that will reverberate till the last 
chain is snapped, and the last tyranny fallen. And they take 
their places at these tables. Following them come in Horace 
Mann, the angel of the common schools, and Daniel Webster, 
of " Liberty and Union, now and forever," and William Lloyd 
Garrison, whom all earth and Hell could not intimidate, and 
Rufus Choate, the thunderer of the American court-room, and 
Edward Everett, the Nineteenth Century Demosthenes, and 
Henry Wilson, fighting his way on up to the Senate Chamber 
and the Vice-Presidency, no other weapon to start with than a 
shoe-last ; and Wendell Phillips, of the golden lips ; and 
Charles Sumner, the inspired emancipator. And they take 
their places at these tables, and after Increase Mather has 
offered prayer, one of them rises and proposes the toast of the 
the evening, viz. : " Our Descendants: may they prove true to 
the principles for which we sailed the stormy waters of the 
Atlantic, or the rougher seas of political agitation. Our 
blessing upon their cradles and their graves ; upon their 
school-houses and their churches ; upon their agriculture and 
their literature ; upon their politics and their religion, for this 
century, and for all the centuries." And at these sentiments 
the old New Englanders rise and click the glasses with a huzza 
that shall ring round the world a thousand years. 

But lest the scene be too prolongedly grave, I again rap 
the table twice, and they are gone and we are back again in 
time to answer the lips of those old wrinkled faces, pledging 
ourselves anew to our country and our God. 

Men of New England, I am not surprised at what you are 
and at what you have achieved, descended from such an 
ancestry. It is a great thing to be born right. Of course 
every one comes to be judged by what he himself is worth. 
I always feel sorry for a man who has so little character him- 



30 

self that he has to go back and marshal a lot of ancestral 
ghosts to make up the deficiency. It is no great credit to a 
fool that he had a wise grandfather. But it is nevertheless 
true that the way the cradle rocks your destiny rocks. Scotch 
blood means persistence. English blood means reverence for 
the ancient. Welsh blood means religiosity. Irish blood 
means fervidity. Indian blood means roaming disposition. 
Roman blood means conquest ; and so all the nations have 
their characteristics. But the Pilgrim Fathers were a chosen 
people, to do a particular work, and by no one word can I 
characterize them. Pilgrim Father blood, as I analyse it, is a 
mixture of courage, old-fashioned honesty, ardent domesticity, 
respect for the holy Sabbath, freedom of religious thought, 
and faith in the eternal God. These are the characteristics of 
the New Englanders whom I have happened to meet, and if 
any body has had a different experience with them he has 
happened to fall among an exceptionally bad lot. 

What warm and genial places are the New England homes ; 
no such scenes at their tables as in a house where at the tea- 
table the husband and wife got into a bitter controversy, and 
the wife picked up a tea-cup and hurled it at her husband's 
head, and it glanced past, and broke all to pieces a beautiful 
motto on the wall, entitled " God bless our Happy Home." 

Notwithstanding their severe winters they lived long, and 
in a New England lecturing hall you see more grey hairs than 
in any other assemblage on earth. And walk through their 
cemeteries and see how many died septuagenarians, and octo- 
genarians, and nonagenarians, so that the inscription the Irish- 
man saw would not be inappropriate. Passing up the track 
of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad the Irishman saw a mile- 
stone with the inscription " io8 miles to Baltimore," and he 
said to his comrade : " Pat, tread easy around this place, for it 
is a very old man buried here, he was io8 years old ; his name 
Miles, and he was from Baltimore." New Englanders, I know, 
have been charged with close-fistedness with their money, but 
I don't think it is any more true of them than of people all 
over the world. Plenty of mean people everywhere. That 
was up here in New York State, where a man asked his neigh- 
bor if he would not take a drink ; the neighbor replied : " No, 



31 

I never drink, but I will take a cigar and three cents." That 
was over here in Pennsylvania, where a stingy man, to econo- 
mize in his meat bill cut off his dog's tail and roasted it, and 
after having gnawed the meat off, gave the bone to the dog. 
That was over yonder in Tennessee, where a child had such 
wrong notions of money, that when, on Sunday-school anni- 
versary day, each boy was to present his contribution and 
quote a passage of Scripture, a boy handed in his contribution 
and quoted: "A fool and his money are soon parted." The 
most of the stories of New England close-fistedness are told 
by those who tried a sharp game on a Yankee, and were 
worsted, and the retort was natural ; as in the case of a man 
on shipboard, coming from California in gold times, when 
there was not half room enough for the passengers, and after 
they had been out four or five days, a man who had not been 
seen before on deck appeared, and his friend said : " Why, I 
did not know you were on board ! How did you get a state- 
room ?" " Oh," he says, " I have none, and I will have to sit 
up all night the rest of the voyage. So far I have been sleep- 
ing on top of a sick man, but he has got well and wont stand 
it any longer." I think in most cases where men have been 
flung by Yankees, it has been where the Yankee would not be 
imposed on any longer. Economy, of course ; prudence and 
forecast, of course ; but no close-fistedness. When I have 
been raising money for some charitable object, and the critic 
of the New Englander has given five dollars, the New 
Englander has given five hundred. 

Freedom of religious thought I rightly announced as among 
the characteristics of the Pilgrim Fathers. Flying hither for 
the privilege of worshipping God in their own way they opened 
the door for such liberty in this respect as is enjoyed in no 
other country. All denominations of religionists have equal 
rights ; and if the smallest denomination should be trodden 
upon, all the other denominations would rise up for its defence, 
and arms would be strong and hearts would be stout and blood 
would be free, and the right of people to worship God in their 
own way would be vindicated, though at the point of the bay- 
onet, and with the carnage flowing up to the bits of the horses' 
bridles. You cannot get the whole human race into Heaven 



32 

through one augur hole. Upon all attempts to put Protestants 
and Catholics into contest I look with wonder and amazement. 
Keep religion out of politics, They who are trying in this 
country to set Protestants and Catholics into collision have no 
idea how long and sharp and terrific a sword they are unsheath- 
ing. May God confound the diabolism. Plenty of room in 
this land for Unitarian and Trinitarian ; for Baptist and Pedo- 
Baptist ; for Calvinist and Armenian; for Jew and Gentile; 
for the present 8,000,000 Catholics and 52,000,000 Protestants. 
Bigotry is an owl of the night, that roosts in the belfry of use- 
less churches. I will tell you which denomination is the best. 
In summer time I find two beehives in quarrel as to which is 
the best beehive ; one preferring this field of clover, and the 
other that field of clover. I come in and say, " Stop this quar- 
rel ! That is the best beehive that gets the best honey." And 
I say that that denomination is the best which gets the most 
honey of Christian grace for the heart, and the most honey of 
Christian grace for the life. Gentlemen, as descendants of the 
men who embarked off Delft Haven for this promised land of 
America, and stepped on shore in the face of a December hur- 
ricane, all of these men foreigners from a foreign land, I ask 
you to set yourselves against the stupid and asinine cry of 
"America for Americans." Of course we want none of the 
thieves and scoundrels and Anarchists of other lands, for we 
have enough of our own. But I say America for all men who 
will come and be genuine Americans, swearing loyalty to our 
government, and working for the public good. The only 
Americans in this country who are not descendants of foreign- 
ers are the Indians. And what an interesting spectacle it 
would have been if, on the morning of December 20th, 1620, 
on the shores of Cape Cod had assembled the Modocs, and the 
Cherokees, and the Mohicans, and the Chippewas, and the 
Ottawas, and the Tuscaroras crying, " Go back with that ship ; 
keep off our soil ; home with you to England and the Nether- 
lands ; America for Americans." Drive out from our Ameri- 
can merchandise and American law and American theology 
and American art the foreigners, and you would set this coun- 
try back half a century. And among the children of those 
Englishmen coming to America we will have the William E. 



33 

Gladstones, and among these Scotchmen there will be John 
Knoxes ; and among those Irishmen, Daniel O'Connells ; and 
among those Italians, Garibaldis. But I would, at the gate of 
Castle Garden, meet all those who come, and present them 
with copies of the Constitution of the United States and the 
Declaration of American Independence, the Ten Command- 
ments, and the Sermon on the Mount, and then tell them to 
go whither they will, and do the best they can for themselves 
and their families. I do not blame them for wanting to come 
here for this is the best country in all the world in which to 
live. How do I know it ? I have 850,000 new reasons for say- 
ing so. 850,000 people came from the other side of the Atlan- 
tic in one year to live in America. If this had not been the 
best country to live in there would have been 850,000 going 
to the other side, and you and I would have been among 
them. This country, attractive now, will become more attract- 
ive. All this continent will yet be under one government. 
As the governments at the south are gradually melting into 
our own, soon on the north all the trouble between Canada 
and the United States will be amicably settled, and the United 
States Government shall offer hand and heart in marriage to 
Canada. Canada will blush and look down, and thinking of 
her allegiance across the sea, will say, " Ask Mother ! " 

All climates and all products have we. Michigan wheat 
for the bread, South Carolina rice for the queen of puddings, 
Pennsylvania coal to fill the furnaces, Louisiana sugar to 
sweeten our beverages, poets and philosophers from Boston to 
explain all we ought to know, oats for the horses, carrots for 
the cattle, and oleomargarine butter for the hogs. 

And now, men of Brooklyn, whether descendants of the Pu- 
ritans, or the Hollanders, or the Huguenots, we are assembled 
at this annual table for commemoration and jubilee, and surely 
gastronomies were never put to grander use. When a back- 
woodsman entered a fashionable restaurant of one of our cit- 
ies, and the bill of fare was handed to him in a beautiful gilded 
book, he said, " Oh, come now, I don't want any of your lit- 
eratoor ; what I want is vittels, and I want 'em mighty quick." 
But at this table we have had both the literature and the 
victuals, and we shall go away from this table thinking better 



34 

of our ancestors, and better of each other, and with firmer re- 
solve to do our very best for our beloved country. To most 
of us it has been a cradle, and to most of us it will be the 
grave. The same glorious privileges which we have enjoyed, 
we want to be enjoyed by our children. We will not sleep 
well the last sleep, and our heads will not rest easy on the 
pillow of dust until we are assured that the God of Amer- 
ican institutions in the past will be the God of American 
institutions in days to come. Oh, when all the rivers which 
em-pty into the Atlantic and Pacific oceans shall be harnessed 
with factory bands, and all the mines of gold and silver and 
iron and coal shall be laid bare to the Nation, and the last 
swamp is drained, and the last jungle cleared, and the last 
American desert Edenized, and from sea to sea this continent 
shall be occupied by more than twelve hundred million souls, 
may it be found that healthful and moral influences have 
multiplied in more rapid ratio than the population. Then shall 
there be four doxologies, coming from the North, and the 
South, and the East, and the West — doxologies rolling toward 
each other, and meeting mid-continent with such dash of holy 
joy that they shall mount to the Throne, 

"And Heaven's high arch resound again 

With • Peace on earth, good will to men ! '" 

Tke CJiairma7i : — The company will now rise and sing two 
verses of the hymn " America," led by the cornet. 

" My country, 'tis of thee, 
Sweet land of liberty, 

Of thee I sing ; 
Land where my fathers died, 
Land of the Pilgrims' pride. 
From every mountain side, 

Let freedom ring. 

" Our fathers' God to Thee, 
Author of liberty, 

To Thee we sing ; 
Long may our land be bright 
With freedom's holy light ; 
Protect us by Thy might, 

Great God, our King." 



35 
The Chairman : — The next regular toast is : 

''NEW ENGLAND IN THE WEST." 

I need not say to you that the gentleman who will respond 
to this has personal knowledge of the West, for he has held 
the high office of Governor of the State of Ohio. 

Let me present the Hon. George Hoadley. 

ADDRESS OF HON. GEORGE HOADLEY. 

Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen of the Nciv England Society in 
Brooklyn : 

When the annual round-up of the spell binders of the 
New England Society in Brooklyn took place last year, the 
cowboys who managed the function missed a yearling, and 
looked for him anxiously, and finally finding him in the 
"bad lands" across the river, they gathered him into the 
corral on the promise that he should be allowed to bray this 
year to a tune of his own selection ; and, oddly enough, he 
missed it, by selecting " New England in the West." Mr. 
Chairman, when I chose that text, I thought I knew something 
of the West. I had been taken from my Connecticut home, 
when an infant, to the now great and beautiful city of Cleve- 
land, before a thousand people lived there. I had resided in 
what was then the great West, before Michigan or Wisconsin 
or any of the great States west of the Mississippi or north of 
Missouri were even territories. I had known Cincinnati before 
75,000 people lived there, and yet, to my surprise and aston- 
ishment, a little while after selecting this toast I found that I 
knew nothing of the West. This I learned in this way : A 
friend was travelling in California last spring, and riding on 
the stage coach beside the driver, exchanging facts, as people 
do under those circumstances. The driver said : " Stranger, 
where be you from?" My friend replied, " I'm from New 
York." "Ah, stranger, you're from the east ; so be I ; I'm 
from Kansas." And then when I looked at the map, and saw 
that the Aleutian Promontory and the islands of the Aleutian 
Archipelego extend 800 miles further to the west than East- 



36 

port and Passamaquody Bay lie east from San Francisco, I 
discovered the astonishing fact that the city of San Francisco- 
is 400 miles east of the geographical center of the United States, 
measured eastward and westward, and of the West, I thus 
learned that I knew nothing, I knew, it is true that before 
Cincinnati lard oil and Pennsylvania petroleum oil had driven 
the whalers from the sea, that there were Yankee seafaring 
men in the far, in the extreme west ; but of this extreme west 
I knew nothing. Going to Alaska, two years ago, with my 
lamented friend, the late Chief Justice Waite, I found, to my 
astonishment, what perhaps you all know, that long before 
the German savant had invented a world-languge and named 
it Volapuk, the Indians of North America under the name of 
the Chinook language had established their world language, 
enabling communication to be carried on from Behring's Strait, 
to the Gulf of California by every Indian tribe occupying the 
Territory, however diverse their dialects. And I bought and 
read with avidity the vocabulary. I found that the word in 
Chinook which names a white man is " Boston-man." The un- 
tutored Indian had learned that Boston man represents civiliza- 
tion the world over. But alas ! alas ! How my good will to the 
Chinook disappeared when I found that the word in Chinook 
which expresses all that is mean, all that is base, all that is 
despicable, all things which we western people call " ornery " 
— that sacred word encrowned in the very center of light and 
knowledge and sweetness, the crown of New England — is the 
good old Latin word "cultus" — that the Indian culture was 
base and mean ; and the cultured man was " Boston-man." 
And with this lesson, which is all I know of New England in 
the West. I turn to my text, which should have been written 
" New England in Ohio." I know something of this, if more 
than half a century's residence qualifies one to speak. The 
Yankee in Ohio. It can all be summed up in one word ; he is 
a " success," This is the whole of it. Why is he a success ? 
Not because of climate, nor of soil. The first Yankee that 
went from Connecticut settled on the Muskingum, in Marietta, 
on the most fertile soil of the State. But he was not followed 
by the " sacred tribes." They resorted to the sterile clay lands, 
that twelve counties of the Western Reserve appropriately 



37 

called " Cheesedom." It was not climate, or soil, it was the in- 
nate energy and " grit," as our Chairman says, of the Yankee, 
which has made him a success in Ohio. A lisping friend once 
said to me, " Gold is valuable ; gold is the thtandard metal, but 
brath is the next beth metal to gold." And there is a story 
told of a distinguished railroad man, who went from a little 
town in the sterile soil of Maine, to the West, many years ago; 
and after a long period of prosperity, thrift, energy, public 
spirit, development and enterprise, which swept all before it, 
and made him a noted and marked man, so that his fame 
reached even to his native village. He returned. He found 
it the same Yankee village ; the same loafers around the stove 
in the country store, whittling, as when he left. One of them 
said to him, " Malachi, they say that out West you have 
got to be a rich man." "Well," said my friend, "1 don't 
know about that. If I lived here I might be called rich, 
but out where I live they don't allow that I am rich." 
" Malachi, they say that you have got to be president of a 
railroad company." " That is true! I am the president of a 
little railroad company." "Well, Malachi, they say you draw 
a salary of $10,000 a year as president of that railroad com- 
pany?" "Yes." "Well; ain't it wonderful what cheek and 
circumstances will do for some men ! " The Yankee in Ohio 
has not had the circumstances, but he has had what his ene- 
mies might call cheek, but which a fair-minded person will bet- 
better name energy. He rises early, and goes to bed late, 
and manages during the interim to introduce as much valuable 
applicaticn of thought and knowledge into his particular de- 
partment of labor as any other man of any other race under 
the shining sun. And this labor, wisely directed, makes the 
Yankee of Ohio a success ; and this is the whole of it. He 
took with him, it is true, all that my distinguished friends have 
spoken of; the school, and the altar, and the sanctity of domes- 
tic life, and all the other sacred relations of which we talk so 
much ; but he took something else, not so good, perhaps, as the 
church, and the altar, but far better than the school, in the 
educational process, for the Yankee took with him and kept 
with him the principle of the minority. Don't misunderstand 
me. There were times when in New England the minority 



38 

were said to be oppressed and driven from the State. But, 
inspection of the minority in New England would reveal no 
less names than those of Roger Williams and Sir Henry Vane, 
and Mistress Ann Hutchinson, God bless her memory ; there 
is nothing in her history to be ashamed of " turbulent com- 
panion," though it is said the lady was. The minority con- 
tinued in Nev/ England until a few old ladies who deserved a 
better fate were hung as witches, and our Tory ancestors had 
been driven into Canada ; and at last the principles of tolera- 
tion and equal rights permeated the New England mind, and 
there came to be a sense of the rights of the minority, with 
which now no New England man would be willing to part, but 
would rather die. We are not proud of those New England 
ancestors who were Tories in the Revolution. Arnold, the 
meanest of them all, betrayed his country, not in cleaving to 
the minority, but in seeking for the majority, which he thought 
he had found among the British. But in the land that lies to 
the north, which Senator Sherman and Representative Butter- 
worth are seeking to annex — cross the line and you will find 
that the heritage of which the many Canadians of New Eng- 
land descent are most proud, is their descent from ancestors 
who were faithful to the crown. If we are to annex Canada, 
as I hope, we must be a little more courteous in our descrip- 
tions of the Tories of the Revolution, for their Canadian 
descendants are Tories too, and they will have votes. A gen- 
tleman in Canada once said to me, " You are proud of your 
New England ancestry?" "Yes." "So am I; more proud, 
and I have a better reason thai> you. Your ancestors left 
England, by way of Holland, more than 200 years ago ; mine 
did the same ; but because we were faithful to the crown, my 
forefathers were driven from New England, and I am most 
proud that I am a descendant of the U. E. L." I replied to 
this outburst, " Pray tell me what a U. E. L. is ; what is it ? 
I never heard the word before." He said : "Don't you know ? 
When my father's father was in Massachusetts, he was no 
rebel, no traitor, he was a ' United Empire Loyalist,' and I 
am prouder that he was, than of anything else in the world." 
Well, now, the time may come when we shall absorb these 
people, and with the Queen dropped, the House of Lords 



39 

dropped, and the Canadian provinces become American states, 
we then, too, shall be ourselves " United Empire Loyalists " 
in a far higher and broader sense than my friend from Ottawa 
boasted himself to be. 

But I must go back to New England in Ohio, and the 
minority. I know the minority there ; I have been part and 
parcel of the minority. A nobler people never lived ; equal to 
their fellow-citizens of that State during 364 days of the year, 
and on the other day their superiors in all but numbers. 
When defeated they feel badly, but they surrender as men 
who know they are fairly conquered. I go further ; in the 
spirit of one who, according to the old adage, 

"Greets not the rising sun, 
But bows to him whose race is run." 

I say that the minority with whom I have been so long and 
so happily associated, are still not unmindful that Ohio has 
furnished, in the person of the successful candidate for the 
Presidency at the recent election, a gentleman, who, however 
misled — not by hereditary instruction, for his father was my 
Democratic representative in Congress, but misled by his own 
erring and wayward will, let us say, into opinions that we did 
not and do not share, yet whom we know as a gentleman, a 
patriot, a stainless and upright man ; for whom we wish four 
years — we know it will be of honest, we hope it will be of suc- 
cessful administration of the affairs of the whole country, 
which chose the President ; our country as well as yours, gen- 
tlement of the majority, for whom we wish no greater glory, 
no better fate than to be described in future American his- 
tory as a worthy successor of his m.ost worthy predecessor. 
\j\pplanse.~\ 

The President : — The next regular toast is, 
"THE JUDICIARY." 

Judge Brady of our New York Supreme Court will 
respond. He will be considered in order even if he does not 
refer to the toast at all. 



40 

Judge Brady arose and was received with much applause. 
His speech was unpremeditated, and a report of it has not 
been received. It was replete with anecdote, wit and humor, 
and heard with much interest and applause. The Judge closed 
with a recital of an alleged political stump speech in German, 
which excited much merriment. Both the speech and the 
recital were a welcome contribution to the entertainment of 
the evening. 



The Chairman : — The next regular toast is : 

"CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS, 
WHICH ARE DESIRABLE IN THE PILGRIM 

SONS." 

This toast will be responded to by the Rev. R. R. Meredith, 
of this city. 

ADDRESS OF REV. R. R. MEREDITH, D.D. 

Mr. Chairman and Gentle^nen: — I am sure of the sympathy 
of every generous mind in this company, as I rise to respond 
to this toast under these circumstances. The lateness of the 
hour and the kind of speaking to which you have been listen 
ing combine together to make the task that devolves upon 
me exceedingly difficult. When I received the invitation of 
the Committee to attend this dinner I was surprised, for I am 
not a son of the Pilgrim Fathers, and have been but a very 
short time a resident of this city, and I was at a loss to ac- 
count for the ground upon which this high honor had been 
conferred upon me. But I was as pleased as I was surprised, 
and hastily and gladly accepted the invitation. As the days 
rolled by and the time drew near for this dinner I began to 
regret my temerity and to doubt my wisdom in accepting the 
invitation to stand in such a presence as this. To put it in 
plain English, I began to be frightened, I was not afraid of 
you ; because I am somewhat acquainted with the Pilgrims. 



41 

I lived for a considerable number of years in Boston, right 
among people that came over in the Mayfioivcr, and I know 
them ; and, barring a tendency to come over you on the ground 
that they did come over in the Mayfloivcr ; barring a tendency 
among them to patronize you because you happen to be of 
the distinguished class of people whom even the grand Mayor 
could not reduce to slavery in Flanders ; barring that I found 
those Boston people and these Pilgrims to be very generous, 
and capable of very warm friendships, and so, v/ith this 
knowledge of the stuff you are made of, I expected a kindly 
greeting from you ; and it was not that I was to see this pleas- 
ant thing that stirred my fear in the least. Nor was I afraid 
of the dinner; the more I thought about it, the more I felt 
sure of myself, that I could do justice to the dinner. I knew 
that by a little careful abstinence beforehand, in order to pre- 
pare me, I was capable of success in attacking even this elab- 
orate menu. And I was further reassured when I thought 
that if so unusual a thing should happen as that, by virtue of 
some interior defalcation, I should fail at that point, you 
would all be so busy about your own concerns and that no- 
body would ever know it. \Laughtcf\. 

I was afraid of this hour. I was afraid of undertaking to 
make a speech here, and those of you who have ever been in 
such a place will appreciate the feeling with which a man like 
me who sits through one of these dinners — not like these men 
here, who have eloquence and wit on tap, and have only to 
turn on the spigot and let it run ; but an ordinary man- — sits 
and waits for the solemn moment when his time is to come. 
He is to be pitied ; and the worst of it is that he gets to feel- 
ing that he is pitied ; and so I came to be sorry. I thought 
of a man I once heard of who set about breaking a couple of 
steers, and found it necessary to tie them with ropes on their 
horns, and to hold on to the ropes. Well, he got on very well 
till he got on to a pair of bars, where it was necessary for him 
to use both hands to get the bars down, and in the meantime 
he wound the lines around one of his legs, and just as he was 
taking down the top bar something frightened the steers, and 
they started for home, and they dragged the poor man over 
the road for a considerable distance, and he was finally rescued 



42 

in a very dilapidated condition. When he came to, his neigh- 
bors upbraiding him, said, " Why did you do so fooHsh a thing 
as to make that line fast to your legs ? " " Don't say a word 
about it," said he. " I hadn't gone more than five rods before 
I saw my mistake." But, mistake or no mistake, I am here, 
and must meet the occasion the best I can. There is only one 
form of revenge that a man can take upon the people who sit 
so comfortably at these dinners devoid of all these perturba- 
tions of mind, and that is to talk an hour and a half. I could 
get even with you in that way, but it Avould be with you very 
much as it was with the Scotch congregation, when the min- 
ister boasted to his fellow-clergymen, " I preached to them 
two hours and twenty minutes." And the other minister said, 
"Why, weren't you awfully tired?" "No," he said, " but 
you ought to have seen the congregation ! " However, with 
the Puritan like virtue I learned in Boston, I will deny myself 
that pleasure, and make what I have to say exceedingly brief. 

There are some of the characteristics of the Pilgrim Fathers 
very desirable, that J v;ill have to pass by ; some very light, 
and some very trivial, yet all very important. Why a modern 
dude would be awfully lonesome in Plymouth. He would 
have been very uncomfortable in that condition of society 
They burned a witch now and again in Salem, and hung a 
Quaker. I don't know what they would have done with a 
dude ; I guess they would have broiled him and served him 
on toast. 

They were simple men and women in their lives. There 
was no extravagance, no desire to surpass each other, that 
is such a prominent evil in the life of to-day. There are 
a great many men who are trying to surpass their neighbors in 
a vulgar and commonplace way, like that successful dealer in 
Petroleum, who, when one of his neighbors bought a picture 
of the Twelve Apostles that cost a great deal of money, went 
to the painter and ordered a picture still more expensive, and 
insisted that the artist should work in eighteen Apostles, so 
that he should get the better of the other fellow. It is a pos- 
itive evil in American life to-day. These men lived simple 
lives ; they lived within their means, and no living man among 
them had to run to Canada to get rid of his creditors, or the 



43 

law of liis land. They were silent, undemonstrative, thought- 
ful men, and to you to-night I commend that trait of their 
character. 

We are getting to be a nation of publishers. The news- 
paper force is one of the grandest forces of civilization. Now, 
I want everybody to suppose that I have said everything as 
grand as possible about the press. But it is not an unmixed 
good. The facility with which everybody gets access to it, and 
the way we meet in Convention, we are getting to be a nation 
living on the surface and talk, and we need to-da}/ the sense of 
the Pilgrims ; something of the undemonstrativeness, of the 
silence and thoughtfulness that characterized those men in 
that day. It is getting to be a fearful thing. I am getting 
frightened. The orators in the last campaign got going it so 
hard, and got their tongues so loose that they could not stop 
them when the campaign was over and Harrison was elected ; 
and they had to have a Spell-binders' dinner, and poured out 
the language they had left over against each other. If that 
goes on nothing will ever stop their tongues but a surgical 
operation, or the hand of Omnipotence. We need to listen '< 
we need to think. Let him who has all the information he 
v/ants nail up his ears with the everlasting clatter of his tongue, 
and go about his business like a fool! But let sensible men be 
silent, and listen, and think, till we get down deeper into the 
life about us to-day, and we will be more like our Pilgrim 
Fathers. I want to say to these gentlemen who do me the 
honor to listen to me to-night, that the Pilgrim Fathers were 
men who understood in what the true dignity and glory of a 
nation lay, and where was the grandeur of their own work. 
They were men in whom the spiritual element was regnant. 
They were not allured across the ocean by any dream of 
material gain. They did not come in pursuit of enlarged 
knowledge. They were neither traders in pursuit of wealth, 
nor explorers in pursuit of information. They were religious 
men. They w^ere driven across the stormy Atlantic by the 
might of a purely spiritual impulse, and the State which they 
founded here was itself a grand religious protest. It is very 
easy for us to criticise Puritanism, very easy for us to disavow 
our belief in this or that phase of it. Puritanism was in itself 



44 

a reaction, and, like all reactions from great abuses, was violent 
and went to an extreme in its emphatic drawing back from ill 
to wrench itself away from very much that was pure, and good, 
and lovely. It is very easy for us to criticise that type of 
religion in New England, it was so harsh, and so unlike the 
Christianity of to-day. Yes, my friend, but remember that, 
like their granite hills, it was massive and majestic. Storm- 
swept and scattered by the avalanch, it reared its lofty peaks 
above all deformities of moral and spiritual truths, in name ; 
and no man in their generation was nearer Heaven, and purer 
in his apprehension of God, than the old New England Puri- 
tan. Let us remember that. But the snows on these peaks 
never melted. They defied the sunbeams ; and the type of 
religion among the Puritans did not give play enough to the 
sweetness and the amenities of religion, which would have 
smoothed down its rough outlines, without impairing its 
strength or majesty. So much may be said. But if the cur- 
rent of religious piety among these grand forefathers ran in a 
narrow channel, gentlemen, it ran straight ; it cut through 
rocks; it did not go around them, and that is worth something. 
And as we come to see how largely the religious living of this 
nation has come from New England, we are prepared to appre- 
ciate the fact that there must have been, of necessity, great 
power stored up there, in order to meet the case. If the num- 
ber of impressions of the religious development were so great, 
the original engraving must have been deeply and clearly cut. 
If the stone were to be formed by so many chisels into such 
various forms, it must be hard. A soft stone never would have 
answered. And a soft Puritanism would have melted away, 
and never have been remembered. We must bear these things 
in mind. I want to pursue these things just a single step fur- 
ther. If the religion of the Puritan made him a stern man, 
please remember that it made him an upright man. He 
believed in God, and had an absolute faith in his sovereignty 
in his life. He was an iron man ; but it was tempered iron, and 
he could hew his way to empire. With his eye on grand 
things, he gave liberty to this nation. It was not born in 
Thomas Jefferson's brain, to be written in the Declaration of 
Independence, but around the cabin-table of the Mayfloivcr, 



45 

and the charter of American Liberty is embodied in that 
document. And it was not a wild Anarchistic idea of Hberty 
either. It was a liberty that gave all men the right to think 
and to speak, but it was a liberty that guarded law, and held 
sacred the institutions of our land. Applied to our own day, 
the liberty which was written out in the charter in the cabin 
of the Mayfloiver, says to this man who goes about us to-day, 
howling for a personal liberty bill, and a personal liberty society 
which, when analyzed, means liberty to keep the rum-shop 
open on Sunday. The eye of the Puritan looks into that 
right and says : " The rum-shop in our street is a blighting, 
blasting curse on any day, and still more soon Sunday." And 
it says, "Moreover, the law is against you, and you will shut 
it on Sunday." The liberty that said to Anarchy " Go abroad, 
utter your doctrines, say your say. If you can convince me 
that you are right I will join you ; you are free. But dare to 
raise your hand against the government, and we will incarcer- 
ate you in jail, and when you are convicted we will hang you 
by the neck until you are dead." It is the liberty that says 
to the Mormons, " You have a perfect liberty in so far as your 
religion is a theory, to try it over the whole earth, to believe 
in Joe Smith, and the Latter Day Saints ; but the law of this 
country preserves the family relation, and when you break 
that law we will put you in jail." 

Then, there is another thing, these men were no narrow 
fanatics, with their eyes on the past. They were men who not 
only filled the responsibilities of the present, but who looked 
to the future. And they laid the foundations of the Nation. 
They put in the fore-front their hopes and fears, and a virtu- 
ous, intelligent belief in the culture and morality of the peo- 
ple. And now with this example before us, it simply depends 
upon us — you who are the sons of the Pilgrims, to keep your 
eye on higher things. The tendency of to-day is toward 
Materialism in everything ; in commerce, and in railroads ; 
everything of material interest. These are the things that 
stirred legislatures ; these are the things that stirred the 
Nation's heart. Whatever touches these must be put down 
at once. It is all right to take care of commerce and railroads, 
but there are higher concerns. The laws of this land respect 



these higher concerns. There are these questions of culture, 
and morahty, and purity of the ballot, that lie at the founda- 
tion of our Nation, and which have respect to the purity of 
the ballot, the maintenance of our public schools, and all other 
questions that stir the heart of Americans to-day. And if we 
are just and true men, if we can climb to the height of those 
grand old men of the past, and are as true in our generation 
as they were in theirs, we will solve these problems so as to 
leave a still richer heritage for the sons of the Pilgrims that 
are to follow. Gentlemen, if we are faithful to the traditions 
of our past, if we expend well the legacy which has been left 
to us, in every coming generation there will be men who rise 
up and sing in new and sweeter strain of the marvelous judg- 
ments and divine mercies of the eternal God in this land. 
And this Nation, flinging away from her the rags of every sin, 
and inured to the fervent and continual practice of righteous- 
ness, shall go on and win for themselves a glorious destiny, for 
that shall be the wisest, soberest, and most Christian of nations 
of the earth. [^Applause.'] 



The Chairman : — The next regular toast is: 
"OUR SISTER SOCIETIES." 

This toast will be responded to by General Woodford, and 
I am sure you will want to sing the Doxology before he gets 
done, for, in the first place, he is to respond for the President 
of the New England Society in the City of New York ; then 
to toast number six, "The West in New England," and then 
to respond to the other toast that we expected would be 
responded to by the gentleman from Mississippi, "The New 
South ; we give it a cordial greeting." Now, with all that, 
the General has a wide and responsible task, and we wish him 
well in his effort, and have no doubt that he will make an 
achievement that will delight us. It gives me great pleasure 
to present the General in this way, because it is a loud call 
upon his principle of sacrifice. 



47 

REMARKS OF GENERAL STEWART L. WOODFORD. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen : 

If there be a shade of veracity anywhere, it is in a New 
England Society. If there be incarnate veracity anywhere, it 
is in the President of the Brooklyn New England Society. I 
never knew till I came to this hall to-night that I was to 
speak, and was warned by my friend Mr. Winslow, that should 
I be called upon, I must cut it very short. 

The President of the Society in New York sends you his 
cordial greetings ; his experience somewhat of regret that the 
Brooklyn Society is already overshadowing the New York 
Society, and trusts that in your archeological discoveries next 
year you will find that the Forefathers landed upon the 23d 
and not upon the 21st of December, so that on the 22d the 
New Yorkers may get ahead of you. 

My friend, Mr. Brady, said that the Irish after the recent 
election were called " Broths of boys," because their ancestors 
were cannibals. Over here we think they were so-called 
because when they counted the vote, we found them all in the 
soup. 

Now, gentlemen, I shall not keep you at this hour. 
Frankly, I am not prepared. If any son of New England 
could bring deeper love this Forefather's Day than I, he 
should stand upon this platform. But none may. 

Thanking you for your cordial welcome I shall make the 
best return that is possible at this late hour, and wish you, in 
all the years to come, celebrations of our New England festi- 
val that shall half way reach the beauty, the joy, the frater- 
nity, the sweetness, of this gathering we have here to-night. 
\_Applause^ 

President Winslow : — We will now sing the Doxology, and 
then be dismissed. 

" Praise God from whom all blessings flow, 
Praise Him all creatures here below, 
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host. 
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." 



The Annual Reception of the Society was held in the Art 
Building, 174 Montague street, on Wednesday evening, March 
21, 1888. A large number of the members and their families 
were present, who listened with great interest to the following 
address by the HON. RouERT D. Benedict, upon 

-TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS AGO." 

The President introduced Mr. Benedict, who spoke as 
follows : 

Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Nezv Englanei Soeiety : 

I wish for a brief space to carry your thoughts back two 
hundred and fifty years to the years 16^^]-%. 

My own thoughts have been turned to that period by this 
fact, that in 1638 one of the vessels which came from England 
to Boston loaded with immigrants for the colony of Massachu- 
setts Bay, brought as one of her passengers a young man 
named Thomas Benedict, whose descendants have spread into 
a numerous family of that name in the land. It has been 
therefore, quite natural that I should have often looked back 
over the years of the six generations who have lived and died 
since the day when he first set foot on this continent, and 
have tried to image to my mind the circumstances which pre- 
sented themselves to an immigrant landing in that year. Nat- 
urally, too, I have read what I could find in histories and 
pamphlets touching that period. And I have found that it 
was a somewhat- notable time. 

So I have thought that you, as descendants of New Eng- 
land men, might find it not uninteresting for half an hour to 
consider with me some of the matters which those men were 
busying themselves about, were thinking about and talking 
about two hundred and fifty years ago. 

They talked much, we may be sure, about England, and the 
events which were taking place there. For it should never be 
forgotten that these men who were then beginning to occupy 



50 

the country were Englishmen. The first native-born citi- 
zen was not then twenty years old. They were a company 
of Englishmen in a foreign land, who, before they left their 
home, had been interested parties in the contest that was then 
being waged in England between King and Bishop on the one 
hand and the people on the other; and we may rest assured 
that they talked over the various phases of that conflict as the 
news of them was brought across the sea, with kindling eyes, 
if not with clinching fists. 

Nor was that contest only a matter of past interest to 
them. Their own practical existence as a colony was involved 
in it. There were repeated efforts made by parties at Court 
to take away the charter of the Colony. In that very year an 
order from the Privy Council in England was forwarded to 
Gov. Winthrop directing that the charter be returned to 
London. In that same year Archbishop Land wrote that he 
would take a time for the redress of disorders in the colony, 
but " by reason of much business that lay upon him, he could 
not at that time accomplish his desire," Winthrop sent back 
a respectful answer, but did not send the charter; and the busi- 
ness which then " lay upon " Archbishop Land so increased 
upon him that within two years he was imprisoned in the 
Tower, and the strife in England left the colonists in New 
England undisturbed in their work of building up a State. 

But at this time they were watching with care and fighting 
with skill hostile influences at Court, and so, as a new comer 
landed, we may be sure that the news which he brought from 
old England was as much interesting to and as much talked of 
by those whom he found here, as was to the new comer the 
strange aspect of a new England, with its different trees and 
beasts and birds and men, and all the various strange adven- 
tures and experiences of new colonists in such a land. 

The new comer had also his experiences upon the long 
voyage to tell, and such experiences, as we know, are a topic 
of never-ending interest. 

It happens that one such voyage has been recorded : John 
Josselyn came from England in 1638, and published a narra- 
tive of his journey. He sailed on April 26th, in the ship 
New Supply. She was a ship of 300 tons, carrying a crew 



51 

of 48 men, more than enough now for a ship of 2,000 tons. 
She brought 164 passengers, and we can judge from one 
occurrence which he relates that they were of the true Puritan 
stock. The voyage was long— 75 days. " On the banks of 
Newfoundland," says Josselyn, " we cast our hooks for cod- 
nshing — thick, heavy v/eather. The cod being taken on Sun- 
day morning, the sectaries aboard threw those their servants 
took, into the sea again, although they wanted fresh victuals." 
Surely it Avas firm principle and true self-denial v/hich led 
them, after living fifty days on salt food, to refuse fresh fish, 
because it was caught on Sunday. 

Josselyn adds that " the sailors were not so nice," which 
we can well believe, nor were all of the passengers of quite so 
true a stamp, for Josselyn relates that Martin Ivy, servant to 
Capt. Thomas Cammock, one day " filched out of the chirur- 
geon's cabin nine great lemons, which he ate, rinds and all, in 
less than an hour's time, for which he was whipt naked at the 
capstan with a cat-o-nine-tails, to teach him to exercise more 
self-denial at another time." 

Josselyn relates, besides his narratives of the voyage, his 
experiences in this strange country. One of them was follows : 
" In the afternoon I walked into the woods on the back side 
of the house; and happening into a fine broad walk, I wan- 
dered till I chanced to see a fruit, as I thought, like a pine 
apple plated with scales. It vv^as as big as the crov/n of a 
woman's hat. I made bold to step unto it, with an intent to 
have gathered it. No sooner had I touched it, but hundreds 
of wasps were about me. At last I cleared myself from them, 
being stung only by one upon the upper lip. Glad I was that 
I escaped so well. But by the time I was come into the 
house, my lip was swelled so extremely that they hardly knew 
me but by my garment." 

The mistake of a hornet's nest for a pine apple was not the 
greatest danger to be met with in the woods. Josselyn relates 
quite an adventure with wolves near Boston., and wolves were 
numerous. A lady's letter to friends at home gives this bit 
of description : " The air of the country," wrote she, " is sharp, 
the rocks many, the trees inumerable, the grass little, the win- 
ter cold, the summer hot; the gnats in summer biting, the 



52 

wolves at midnight howling. Look upon it, as it hath the 
means of grace and if you please you can call it a Canaan." 

Perhaps I may offset this prevalence of wolves by an ex- 
tract from another letter, of some years later date; it is true, 
which says: "We have no beggars, and few idle vagabonds, 
except now and then some quakers from Road Island that 
much molest us." Two hundred and fifty years, as you see, 
have changed the status in New England of both wolves and 
Quakers. 

But the matters of principal interest in the Colony of Mas- 
sachusetts Bay, 250 years ago, were not perils from wild beasts, 
nor the strangeness of a new land, nor the incidents of voy- 
ages. Nor were the eyes of the people fixed mainly on the 
great contest for liberty which was convulsing their native 
land. The thoughts of that whole community were mainly 
occupied by a great contest in their own borders between 
Christ's Kingdom and the Powers of Evil; a contest, which to 
them had a much more positive and manifest form than it 
presents to us now-a-days. 

We think of the Puritans who came to this country per- 
haps too much as animated solely by a zeal for religious free- 
dom. We sing Mrs. Heman's lines (written not 250, but some- 
thing over 50 years ago): 

" They have left unstained what there they found, 
Freedom to worship God." 

and we are apt to think that " freedom to worship God " was 
all which they sought in coming to these shores ; and we rejoice 
that neither the passage of the stormy Atlantic, nor the cold 
of the New England winter could chill that religious fervor. 
But, as I have said, they were Englishmen. They came from 
a land which was hot with a party contest, made hotter be- 
cause the party questions were religious questions. They 
brought with them their party spirit as well as their religious 
views. Nor were they all of one mind, either as to religious 
views or party spirit. The fact is that New England attracted 
to it not only the staid and sober minded, but also some per- 
sons of unbalanced minds ; men whom we should be tempted 
now-a-days to call " cranks ; " men in Avhose minds views of 
religious truth had become Vv'arped and twisted in the fires of 



53 

controversy, and under the stringency of religious repression 
in England. And there appeared in the community strange 
religious doctrines in swarms. A synod of the clergy of the 
Colony, called in 1637, to consider the matter, formulated a list 
of 82 errors of doctrine which were to be found in the Colony. 
Some of them were manifestly grievous and dangerous errors. 
I instance but one, the Antinomian doctrine, that '^Christians 
are not under the law and command of the Divine word as a 
rule of life." I mention this because it was the main feature 
of the controversy, which has gone into history under the 
name of the Antinomian controversy. Many of these 82 errors 
however, were so abstruse and metaphysical that the contest 
over them reminds one of the words of St. Paul where he 
speaks of " doting about questions and strifes of words whereof 
cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disput- 
ings." And of these evil consequences the land was- full. 
Those who came to New England 250 years ago found that 
though they had left behind them the hot conflicts of English 
politics, they had by no means come to a land of peace and 
harmony. " I was no sooner on shore," says John Clark, who 
landed in 1637, "but there appeared to me differences among 
them touching the covenants, and in point of evidencing a 
man's good estate, (that is the proof of the salvation of his soul.) 
Some pressed hard for a covenant of works and for sanctifi- 
cation to be the first and chief evidence. Others pressed as 
hard for a covenant of grace that was established upon better 
promises and for the evidence of the Spirit as that which is the 
more certain, constant and satisfactory witness. I thought it 
not strange to see men differ about matters of Heaven, for I 
expect no less on earth. But it zuas strange to see that they 
were not able to bear with each other in their different under- 
standings and consciences, so as in those utmost parts of the 
world to live peaceably together.". John Clark's marvel was 
well justified. The colonists of New England in that year 
were burdened by their first serious Indian war. And yet the 
whole land was boiling with a religious controversy, which 
divided the people of Massachusetts Bay in a fierce political 
conflict among themselves and led to the first political cam- 
paign on the continent. 



54 

The colonists of Massachusetts Bay seem to have num- 
bered at that time about 20,000. Boston was the principal set- 
tlement, with about twenty-five others. The charter of the 
Colony had given legislative powers to the whole body of the 
freemen, and they elected by ballot annually a governor, 
deputy governor and eighteen assistants. The right of suf- 
frage was by no means universal. To be a voter a man must 
be admitted to the body of freemen, and he must take the 
freeman's oath; and moreover, in 1631, when the freemen 
were only about 150 in number, it had been ordered and agreed 
that " To the end the body of the commons may be preserved 
of honest and good men for the time to come ; no man shall 
be admitted to the freedom of this body politic, but such as 
are members of some of the churches within the limits of the 
same." 

Now, with church-membership a pre-requisite to the right 
to vote, it is easy to see that any difference of religious doc- 
trine, which became serious enough to amount to a contro- 
versy, could hardly fail to lead to a political contest, and so it 
proved. The first election campaign in Massachusetts Bay, 
was due to a difference in religious doctrine, which it is dififi- 
cult to state in terms that are intelligible now. That election 
occurred in 1637, and although the Colony was only eight 
years old, probably the terms Conservative and Radical would 
somewhat describe the two parties. They called each other 
Legalists and Antinomians. The two candidates were John 
Winthrop and Sir Henry Vane, and they fairly represented 
the different elements. 

Winthrop was a man fifty years of age. He had been the 
leader in the formation of the Colony, and is described by 
Captain John Smith as " A worthy gentleman, both in estate 
and esteem." He was chosen the first governor, was re-elected 
three years in succession, and after being two years out of 
office, had been elected deputy-governor, and held that office 
at this time ; a high-minded, public-spirited man, wise in coun- 
sel, prudent in speech, and firm in action. 

His opponent was Sir Henry Vane, who afterwards died on 
the scaffold in England on the restoration of the Stuarts. 
At this time he was a young man, twenty-five years of age. 



55 

He had come to this country on October 6, 1635. On the 
1st of November he was admitted a member of the Boston 
church ; on March 3, 1636, he was admitted a freeman, and in 
May he was chosen Governor of the Colony. On his election 
the fifteen ships that were in the harbor of Boston fired a 
salute, and the next week Vane invited the masters of them 
all to dinner, the first entertainment of the kind that had been 
had in Boston ; and, as the controversy was already beginning 
to get warm, the conservative element doubtless spoke of that 
dinner with suspicion, and thought that such festivities boded 
ill times for the commonwealth. 

The year of Vane's governorship proved a year of conten- 
tion and disturbance. If his election, with the steady Win- 
throp as Deputy Governor, had been a compromise, an effort 
to harmonize elements which were beginning to grow discord- 
ant, it had met with the usual result of compromises. The 
contest had only grown sharper. And now, in the very next 
year, the two factions were arrayed against each other in a 
struggle for supremacy, the one seeking to re-elect Vane, the 
other to put Winthrop in his place. 

There were some elements involved in that election which 
are not wholly unfamiliar in the political contests of our days, 
though doubtless they bore different names. There was Con- 
servative against Radical, Experience against Youth, and the 
Old Settler against the Carpet-bagger. But there was another 
element entirely unknown in our politics. There was Ortho- 
doxy against New Light, for, as I have said, the controversy 
at bottom was over religious doctrines. 

Political platforms had not been invented two hundred and 
fifty years ago. Nor are we informed that any Nominating 
Conventions were called that year in Massachusetts Bay. If 
there had been, the platforms of the two parties would have 
contained no declaration in reference to tariff or protection, 
high license or prohibition, freedom of suffrage or civil service 
reform. 

The followers of Vane might have had a platform some- 
what as follows : 

Resolved, That we believe that the Holy Ghost is united to 
the true believer in person. 



56 

Resolved, That no degree of sanctification can be evidence 
of a man's good estate without a concurrent sight of justifica- 
tion. 

Resolved, That we hold fast to the Covenant of Grace ; 
that we pomt with pride to those faithful servants of the Lord 
Christ in this Colony, who preach a Covenant of Grace ; and 
we warn those preachers who are under a Covenant of Works, 
that the eyes of the people, as well as those of the Great 
Teacher, are upon them. 

Resolved, That the Lord has more truth and light to break- 
forth out of His Holy Word, and that the revelation of His 
truth to the believer is the rule of faith and life. 

The Winthropites on the other hand might have declared 
somewhat as follows : 

Resolved, That we know none of the preachers or elders in 
this Colony, who do not advance the free grace of God in 
justification as far as the word of God requires. 

Resolved, That we view with alarm the spread of Anti- 
nomian and Familistic doctrines in this Colony, especially that 
the law is not the rule of life to a Christian, and that a man 
may have the assurance of his union with Christ, not by sanc- 
tification but by immediate revelation. 

Resolved, That we point with pride to the growth and pros- 
perity of this Colony under the guiding hands of the experi- 
enced men who laid its foundations ; and we find no reason 
in the contention and disturbance of the past year, which 
should lead the freemen of this Colony to continue its govern- 
ment in the hands of youth and inexperience, guided by 
fancied revelation. 

Over such doctrines the political contest waxed hot that 
year. Discussion and debate were everywhere. As one writer 
says : "It began to be as common here to distinguish men, by 
being under a covenant of grace or a covenant of works, as 
in other countries between Protestant and Papist," and to 
appreciate the comparison you must remember that it was 
within 80 years from the death of Bloody Mary to the Duke 
of Alva. 

In this temper of the people the election for governor drew 



57 

near. Besides the other not unfamiHar elements Involved, there 
were in also the familiar element (to us) of the city against the 
rural districts. For the Boston church, almost to a man, favored 
Vane, and that led to the first move in the campaign, when 
the General Court, much to the disgust of Vane and his fol- 
lowers, ordered that the election should not be held in Boston, 
but at Newtown, which is now Cambridge. 

Nevertheless, the Boston people bestirred themselves. It 
was the rule then that a freeman might vote by proxy ; and so 
they set themselves to the work, also not wholly unfamiliar in 
our day, of getting proxies ; and I am inclined to think that 
they thought they were going to win by the aid of proxies, 
and were disappointed. If such were the fact, it would explain 
a curious performanae of Vane and his followers on election 
day. The election was to be held at one o'clock in the after- 
noon. For some reason the adherents of Vane wished to de. 
lay it ; and when the hour came. Vane, who, as Governor, was 
presiding of^cer of the meeting, instead of proceeding to the 
business of the election, presented to the meeting a petition 
from some of their party in Boston impugning certain action 
which had been taken by the General Court in reference to a 
party matter; and he insisted that this petition should be dis- 
posed of before any other business was taken up. One of the 
historian of New England says that Vane's object was to intro. 
duce debate and continue it through the day till the time for 
the election was past, which would leave him Governor for the 
next year. But I can hardly believe Vane was unscrupulous 
enough to form such a plan, or so wrong in his judgment of 
the men who opposed him as to suppose that they would yield 
the victory to him on so poor a pretext as that. Hubbard, 
in his History, says that Vane and his party expected a great 
advantage that day because the remote towns were allowed 
to vote by proxy, and as Hubbard was sixteen years old at 
the time, he may be presumed to speak from direct informa- 
tion. I think, therefore, that Vane's proposal of the petition 
for debate was only in the hope of gaining sufficient time for 
the arrival of proxies from remote towns. 

Whatever were the reasons which led Vane to urge the 
consideration of the petition, his purpose was at once per- 



ceived, and, as we may believe, the proposition brought 
increased heat into what was already a hot contest. The day 
was hot, too ; and the election was to be held at one o'clock 
P.M., and out of doors. One of the writers of the time says: 
"As the season grew hotter, so the minds of men w^ere hot in 
the eager pursuit of their self-conceited opinions, and, verily 
had not authority stepped in, it was much to be doubted they 
would have proceeded from words to blows." 

The Winthrop party insisted that, as the meeting was 
called for the election, the election was the first business in 
order. The Vane party insisted on the right of petition. 
When church-membership is a pre-requisite to voting, it is not 
strange if ministers of the Church make political speeches, and 
the scales of this election were turned by a speech from the 
Rev. John Wilson, one of the memhers of the Boston church, 
but one of the few in that church who supported Winthrop. 

Bancroft says that there was on that day " such high excite- 
ment that even the pious Wilson climbed into a tree to har- 
angue the people." The picture which Bancroft has thus 
given of a minister of the principal church in Boston in those 
days of reverence for the clergy so far forgetting the decorum 
due to his station as to scramble up a tree on election day in 
the presence of all the people, and he fifty years old, is a start- 
ling one ; and though any one should hesitate before dift^ering 
with so high an authority as Bancroft upon any point, I am 
inclined to think that, on this point of Mr. Wilson's climbing 
the tree, his picture is too highly colored. Aside from the 
question of decorum, I venture to doubt whether any man who 
wished to speak to a popular assembly so as to produce a prac- 
tical result would have placed himself where the flow of his 
periods must be interfered with by the necessity of his keeping 
his balance, unless indeed he guarded against the danger of a 
fall by delivering his harangue seated on a limb, with legs 
dangling on either side. We could hardly expect flights of 
oratory or forcible argument from so precarious and undigni- 
fied a standing or sitting place. On examination I find that 
Bancroft's statement seems to have for its authority a sentence 
from a manuscript life of Wilson which reads as follows : * Mr. 
Wilson, the minister, got up upon the bough of a tree 'nd 



59 

there made a speech." I suspect that, in fact, the bough in 
question had been cut off and was lying ou the ground, so as 
to be reached without cHmbing, and that Mr. Wilson only 
stepped up on the bough to get a little vantage in height, as 
many a man since his day for the same purpose has stepped 
up on a stump. 

Certainly there was nothing to interfere with the effective- 
ness of Wilson's oration, for the same manuscript proceeds: 
*' Mr. Wilson's speech was well received by the people, who 
presently called out 'election! election!' which turned the 
scale." Thereupon Winthrop, the Deputy Governor, took 
upon himself to call upon the people to divide, and the ma- 
jority were in favor of proceeding to the election. But Vane 
was stubborn and still refused to proceed, till Winthrop again 
put in a decisive word by telling him that if he would not 
proceed they would proceed without him. Vane did not 
venture to persist farther, and the election v;as held. It re- 
sulted in the entire defeat of his party and the election of 
Winthrop to take his place as Governor. It would be curious 
to know how the vote stood, but none of the chroniclers men- 
tion the figures and it is quite too late to have a recount. 
Vane showed excessive mortification at the result, and soon 
after left the colony to do good service for the cause of liberty 
in England — probably better service than he would have done 
in New England had he remained. 

As it is no marvel that when none but church members 
were voters, questions of church doctrine should become polit- 
ical issues, so it is also no marvel that in such a case the polit- 
ical contest should extend into the churches, and that a polit- 
ical campaign should be followed by court proceedings and 
church discipline. And so, soon after this election, followed 
the celebrated trial, banishment and excommunication of Mrs. 
Anne Hutchinson. 

Baldly stated, the case of Mrs. Hutchinson was this: She 
is spoken of by one of the early historians as a gentlewoman 
^' of nimble wit, voluble tongue, eminent knowledge in the 
Scriptures, of great charity and notable helpfulness." Rev. 
John Cotton, one of the great lights of the Massachusetts 
pulpit of the time, said of her that she "was well-beloved, and 



6o 

all the faithful embraced her conference and blessed God for 
her fruitful discourses." 

This lady was brought before the General Court on account 
of her religious teachings, was accused of traducing the minis- 
ters of the countr}', and was banished from the colony and 
afterwards excommunicated from the Boston Church. She 
and her family betook themselves to Rhode Island, and after- 
wards to a place near Hell Gate, where they were all massacred 
by the Indians. 

Party spirit of that time on the one side considered this 
dealing with Mrs. Hutchinson as " an expression of Providence 
proceeding from the Lord's miraculous mercy, in which His 
bare arm hath been discovered from first to last, that all the 
churches may hear and fear.'' A pamphlet on the other side, 
of thirty years after, says that the Indians " were the execu- 
tioners of what the New England priests, magistrates and 
church members were the occasion, through their wicked and 
cruel proceedings in forcing them to flee from their rage and 
fury." 

And ever since, wherever any one sets himself to assail the 
Puritans, you may be pretty sure to hear a reference to the 
case of Mrs. Hutchinson. 

Nor do I claim that such reference to the case is unfair, or 
that the action of the leaders of the colony in the matter can 
be entirely justified in the better light of these later days. Nor 
ought any friend of the Puritans to object to just criticism or 
make for them an undiscriminating defence. But, after two 
hundred and fifty years, we ought to be able to look at the 
case fairly ; and, in order to a fair judgment, some of the sur- 
rounding circumstances need to be considered, for such often- 
times are a most important part of the picture. 

In the first place, the General Court of Massachusetts Bay, 
before which Mrs. Hutchinson stood, was not what we mean 
by a Court. It was Court, Legislature and Governor all com- 
bined. With all those three functions combined, it was not 
confined to such action as a Court may take among us, but 
might properly consider questions and proceed by methods 
which are not appropriate to our judicial procedure. Its dis- 
cretionary powers were much wider than those of a court. In 



6i 

the next place, the time was one of very hot party contro- 
versy — over religious questions, if you please, but none the 
less hot for that — in which controversy the political life of the 
colony was involved. 

Is it any more to be wondered at that, in such a time, re- 
ligious (which were political) utterances should be scrutinized, 
or even restrained, than it was that when the Rebellion broke 
out men should find themselves in Fort Lafayette for the ex- 
pression of Secession sentiments, or than it is that in our days, 
when Anarchy seems to be preparing for an assault upon 
society, the utterances of Anarchist leaders should bring them 
before our Courts? 

But you may say, "What had Mrs. Hutchinson to do with 
this political conflict ? What importance had her speech, she 
being neither a voter politically nor a teacher ministerially? 
Why should the authorities take a woman to task for talking? 
We may bring Johann Most before the courts, but v/e do not 
indict Mina Van Zandt." 

It is quite true that we do not, but the circumstances are 
widely different. 

Two hundred and fifty years ago the intellectual life of the 
people had no such scope for its activity as now. There were 
then no newspapers ready to perform all the discussion and de- 
bate for the whole community. Books were scarce. There were 
no theatres, no courses of lectures, no New England Societies. 
Almost the only source of intellectual food was the sermons 
of the preachers ; and when religious doctrine was political 
doctrine, it is not unreasonable to infer that the thoughts of 
the people may have dwelt on the sermons through the week 
more than those of church-goers of the present day are apt to 
do. Perhaps, as a consequence of this, there existed a custom 
which we should hardly wish to revive. Not only did the 
preachers deliver two solid sermons on Sunday, but during the 
week the members of the church held a meeting for the ex- 
press purpose of discussing and criticising the sermons. 

I read recently of a minister who wrote to a friend that, 
having heard that the pulpit in a church which he named was 
vacant, he would like to know who was the " leading spirit " 
in the church, as he thought of making application. He re- 



62 

ceived for answer that the ^' leadhig spi?'ii'' in that church was 
the spirit of criticism; but, if he wished to apply, Mr. So-and- 
so was the chairman of the committee. 

How would our churches bear the strain of a weekly meet- 
ing arranged as an express field for the spirit of criticism, and 
which might be at the same time a political meeting as 
well? 

The Puritans in general accepted the decisions of St. Paul, 
that he did not suffer the women to teach in the churches, 
and the men only exercised this function of criticism. But to 
Mrs. Hutchinson that dictum of St. Paul's did not seem to 
have so much force as that other dictum of his, that the elder 
women should teach the younger, and she set up a woman's 
meeting for a similar purpose, in which she was naturally chief 
critic, and by no means confined herself to the subjects which 
St. Paul mentions as proper subjects for such teaching, but 
ranged with freedom over the whole field of religious contro- 
versy and party conflict. Here and now it disturbs no one to 
learn that a hundred women or more gather together at a pri- 
vate house on a week day to hear a religious discourse from 
one of their own sex. But that was a time of hot controversy, 
and these meetings and discourses of Mrs. Hutchinson's, and 
her private teachings with her nim.ble wit and voluble tongue, 
became a power in the political contest, and therefore the 
conservative party began to look askance at the meeting and 
the leader of it. It came to be charged that Mrs. Hutchinson 
was not only leading her hearers astray by erroneous and dan- 
gerous teaching, but that she was distinguishing between the 
ministers of the various churches, even reaching the dreadful 
pitch of declaring that most of them were under a covenant of 
works, while those whom she favored were under a covenant 
of grace. And as Vane was a strong adherent of her views, 
and as her influence and teachings had spread through the 
Boston Church till in the political contest it was almost unani- 
mous in support of Vane, the principal minister of the church, 
Mr. Cotton, being claimed to sympathize with her views, 
although the other (for the church had two) was Mr. Wilson, 
who spoke against Vane from the tree bough, it is plain that 
the conservative leaders had some reason to consider Mrs. 



63 

Hutchinson and lier teachings as a main cause of the dissen- 
sion in the colony — a dissension which had almost brought the 
opposing parties to blows on election day, and which was 
seriously interfering with the efficient government of the 
colony. In raising their quota for the Pequot war, there were 
some who refused to assist, because they considered some of 
the officers to be under a covenant of Works. To quote Ban- 
croft's words : "The dispute infused its spirit into everything. 
It interfered with the levy of troops for the Pequot war. It 
influenced the respect shown to magistrates, the distribution 
of town lots, the assessment of rates, and at last the continued 
existence of the two parties was considered inconsistent with 
the public peace." 

It is hardly to be wondered at that when the election had 
placed the conservative party in power, they should have 
sought to remove the dissension. When Winthrop was called 
to account before the Church of Boston for his share in the 
measures which were taken, he did not hesitate to justify him- 
self by saying that he "saw that these brethren, etc., were so 
divided from the rest of the country, in their judgment and 
practice as it could not stand with the public peace that they 
should continue amongst us. So, by the examp'e of Lot in 
Abraham's family and after Hagar and Ishmael, I saw they 
must be sent away." Having come to this conclusion, it is 
no wonder that in proceeding to carry it out they should have 
determined to proceed against the teterriuia causa of the dis- 
sension, if possible, and in that view have summoned Mrs. 
Hutchinson before the General Court. 

Two reports of the proceedings in the case are extant. 
One of them is contained in a book published by Mrs. Welde, 
in England, in 1644, the title of vv'hich is "A Short Story of 
the Rise, Reign and Ruin of the Antinomians, Familists and 
Libertines that infected the Churches in New England, and 
how they were confuted by the Assembly of Ministers there ; 
as also of the Magistrates' Proceedings in Court against them. 
Together with God's strange, remarkable judgment upon some 
of the Chief Fomenters of these Opinions, and the Lament- 
able Death of Mrs. Hutchinson." It is, as you might judge 
from its title, the work of one bitterly hostile to Mrs. Hutch- 



64 

inson. The other account of her trial is attached to the His- 
tory of the Colonies of Massachusetts Bay, by Thomas Hutch- 
inson, one of her lineal descendants. It appears to have been 
the one that was kept in the family ; and while it is in some 
points more favorable to her, as would be expected, there is 
no material difference between the two. 

The purpose of the Court from the beginning to find occa- 
sion to send Mrs. Hutchinson away is manifest. In the ad- 
dress made to her at the opening of the proceedings by Win- 
throp, who as Governor presided, he told her that she was 
summoned as " one of those that have troubled the peace of 
this Commonwealth and the churches here" — summoned " in 
order that, if you be obstinate in your course, the Court may 
take such course that you may trouble us no farther." The 
occasion which the Court did find was furnished by Mrs. 
Hutchinson herself. 

The report of what she said during the first day's proceed- 
ings fully justifies the description of her as " a nimble wit." 
She distinctly had the best of Winthrop in tlie controversy on 
the first point made against her, that of countenancing the 
opposing faction, as also on the question of the lawfulness of 
her meeting. Thereupon Winthrop brought forward as a 
third ground of complaint that she had "disparaged" and 
" depraved " all the ministers. It is not to be understood by 
this charge of depraving the ministers that there was any 
charge that her presence in Boston had proved injurious to 
the morals of the clergy. Winthrop only intended to say 
that she had slandered them, when he said she had depraved 
them, by saying that they all, except Mr. Cotton, preached a 
covenant of works, and only Mr. Cotton a covenant of 
grace. 

This was a sore spot in the controversy. On her trial of 
the charge seven ministers out of the twenty-five or thirty in 
the Colony came forward to testify against her. It appeared 
that on the rumor spreading that she had so assailed the min- 
isters, they had had a conference with her, and they declared 
that, in the course of it, she had said that they preached a cov- 
enant of works ; that they were not able ministers of the New 
Testament, and had not the seal of the Spirit. Mrs. Hutchin- 



65 

son shrewdly urged that that was a private conference with her, 
and should not be made a ground of accusation ; but she also 
denied having said just what they charged. She claimed, and 
she brought witnesses to testify that what she had said was 
that the other ministers did not preach a covenant of grace so 
clearly as Mr. Cotton did. Probably it would have made no 
difference in the result, if she had been shrewd enough to rest 
upon the difference in the memory of those equally good men 
who testified on opposite sides as to what had been said in 
that conference. But on the second day the weakness of the 
woman showed itself, and that element in her mind and spirit, 
which was probably the real source of danger in her teachings 
and influence, appeared. She began, of her own accord, to 
speak of revelations which had been given to her. 

Now the belief in immediate revelation has certainly a side 
to it which must be conceded to be dangerous. Every now 
and then it appears as the foundation of dangerous disorders. 
Only a few weeks ago I saw a notice of some such outbreak 
in Texas, where revelations to a woman named McWhirter 
were said to be breaking up homes and family relatious. We 
all remember the man in Massachusetts who, under immediate 
revelation, some years since, killed his children. Joe Smith 
and Mormon polygamy were the outcome of immediate reve- 
lations. In 1638 a woman killed her child in Salem, at the 
command of immediate revelation. Not a hundred years be- 
fore that all Europe had been horrified by the excesses of the 
Anabaptists, of Munster, who claimed to act under immediate 
revelation. And when Mrs. Hutchinson, abandoning the posi- 
tion which she had held of a person accused, who had the 
right to know the charges against her and to have them proved 
by evidence, opened her mouth and spoke of revelations, she 
gave the Court an obvious foundation for proceeding against 
her, of which it was not slow to avail itself. She told the 
Court that, having been much troubled to see the falseness of 
the constitution of the Church of England, she had kept a day 
of solemn humiliation and pondering over the question, "Who 
is Antichrist ? " and the Lord had shown her that those who 
did not teach the new covenant were Antichrist ; and ever 
since then she said the Lord had discovered the ministry to 



66 

her, and enabled her to distinguish the voice of Antichrist, 
and this she declared she knew just as Abraham knew that he 
was commanded to sacrifice Isaac by an immediate revelation. 
And then she told the Court that she never had any great 
thing done about her, but it was revealed to her beforehand, 
and that before she left England it w^as shown to her that she 
was to meet affliction, as Daniel was cast into the den of lions, 
but that God v/ould, in like manner, deliver her. " Therefore," 
said she, " I desire you to look to it, for you see this Scripture 
fulfilled this day, and, therefore, I desire you, as you tender 
the Lord and the Church and the Commonwealth, to consider, 
and look what you do. You have power over my body, but 
the Lord Jesus hath power over my body and my soul ; and 
assure yourselves thus much, you do as much as in you lies to 
put the Lord Jesus Christ from you, and if you go on in the 
course you begin you will bring a curse upon you and your 
posterity, and the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." 

Cotton Mather, in his Magnolia, reports her as closing her 
speech without any " if," but with the positive declaration, " I 
know that for this which you go about to do God will ruin you 
and your posterity and this whole state." Whichever version is 
correct, she had furnished the Court its opportunity. She had 
intimated quite clearly that the ministers who were opposed 
to her were Antichrist. She had declared that she received as 
immediate revelation, as Abraham did, and, to crown all, she 
had warned the Court that it was going to be a dangerous 
thing to do anything against her, 

Johann Most, the Anarchist, told the judge that the Court 
was to decide by its sentence of him whether free speech and 
lawful assemblage should be destroyed in this country. But 
the judge, none the less, sentenced him to prison as a disturber 
of the public peace, and free speech and lawful assemblage are 
not destroyed. And so the members of the General Court of 
Massachusetts Bay, with but three exceptions, notwithstand- 
ing Mrs. Hutchinson's prophecy of ruin, voted that she should 
be banished from the Colony. And two hundred and fifty 
years have shown no ruin falling upon them, or their posterity, 
or the State. It was not the mouth of the Lord, but the mouth 
of Mrs. Hutchinson which had spoken it. 



6; 

It is to be borne in mind that this sentence of " banish- 
ment " has a greater sound of severity now than the facts then 
actually exhibited. It was only compelling Mrs. Hutchinson 
to do what many were continually doing voluntarily, viz,, leav- 
ing a settlement ten years old to go to a still newer one. The 
compulsion was all that gives it the aspect of severity. We all 
know Brooklyn people who have moved their residence to 
New Jersey. Probably they w^ould have been very indignant 
if they had been compelled to do that very thing. But could 
our Courts have been justly charged with severity or barbarity 
in the case of Johann Most, the Anarchist, if, when he was 
called up for sentence, the judge had announced that, as a 
punishment for his crime, he must leave New York and live 
henceforth in New Jersey. 

Winthrop and his associates acted on the idea that in causing 
the removal of Mrs. Hutchinson they were removing a source 
of strife and dissension — a cause of danger and serious social 
disturbance. I see no reason to doubt the honesty of their 
belief that a teacher who had certainly been prominent in 
forming a faction, who pretty clearly intimated that most of 
the religious teachers in the Colony were Antichrist, and who 
announced herself as being the recipitent of immediate reve- 
lations from God, was a source of danger to the peace of 
the community. Mrs. Hutchinson's banishment was followed 
by the disarming of the faction which she had supported. The 
secret for the disarming had this preamble : " Whereas, the 
opinions and revelations of Mr. Wheelwright and Mrs. Hutch- 
inson have seduced and led into dangerous errors many of the 
people here jn New England, inasmuch as there is just cause 
of suspicion that they, as others in Germany in former times, 
may, upon some revelation, make some sudden irruption upon 
those that dtift from them in judgment." And, therefore, 
seventy-two men were ordered to deliver up their arms, and, 
though with reluctance, did so. 

Who can say that this belief of Winthrop and his associates 
was not well founded, as well as honest ? Their proceedings 
did stop dissension and maintain peace. Who can say that 
the result would have been the same if Mrs. Hutchinson had 
not been banished and her faction had not been disarmed ? 



68 

Although we may criticise some of the incidents of the affair, 
yet as to the sending of Mrs. Hutchinson out of the Colony, 
no one should assail the Puritan leaders for it unless he is pre- 
pared to show that they were not acting under a well-founded 
belief of danger to the public peace. If they were acting 
under that belief, their action is not without excuse, perhaps 
not without justification. 

I have only time to speak in the briefest way of the rest of 
Mrs. Hutchinson's story. Her sentence was passed in Novem- 
ber, 1637, but the near approach of winter made its immediate 
enforcement too severe, and her departure was postponed till 
spring ; meantime she was put in charge of Mr. Welde, of 
Roxbury ; by which means any further ill effects of her dan- 
gerous teachings were guarded against. Before the spring 
came a surprising change seems to have come over the Boston 
church; and in March, 1638, she was called by that church to 
appear before it to answer for holding erroneous religious 
doctrines, a list of about thirty different errors being charged 
against her. A long debate upon them ensued. She finally 
acknowledged error on some of them, and prepared a written 
answer to them all, which was spoken of by her opponents as 
a recantation. But one of the errors charged against her had 
the following: "That there is no inherent righteousness in 
the Saints, and that the righteousness in them is all the right- 
eousness of Christ." This opinion, Mrs. Hutchinson, in her 
answer, declared that she had never held, whereupon some of 
those present insisted that she had manifestly expressed it ; 
and on this question of fact her whole case was made to 
turn. All question of the truth or error of her teaching 
was dropped. Whether there is or is not any " inherent 
righteousness in the Saints " was no longer a subject of consid- 
eration in that church-meeting. Mrs. Hutchinson declaring 
that she had never said there was none, and others having de- 
clared that she had said so, the church with one accord rose 
up and excommunicated her for " impertinently persisting in 
a manifest lie, then expressed by her in open congregation." 
That was done two hundred and fifty years ago, on the 22d 
of March, 1638. And so the poor lady was not only ordered 
out of the Colony by the almost unanimous vote of the^Gen- 



69 

e.ral Court, which was, however, composed of members of the 
opposite party, but she was cast out of the church by unani- 
mous vote, although all of its members, but four or five, had 
been her adherents less than a year before ; cast out. not for 
maintaining an erroneous doctrine, but for declaring that she 
had not maintained it. 

This action of the Church seems to me far less defensible 
than that of the civil authorities. Nor have I found any suf- 
ficient explanation of it, or any satisfactory way of accounting 
for so great and speedy a change in the attitude of the Boston 
Church towards her. The case remains to me a striking in- 
stance of the instability of men — 

" One fool on sea and one on shore, 
To one thing constant never 

—and a striking proof of the heated state of men's minds in 
Massachusetts two hundred and fifty years ago, when such a 
change could affect a whole community in so brief a time. 
This banishment of Mrs. Hutchinson was but an incident in a 
controversy which continued many years. I think we may be 
certain that the proceedings in her case furnished material for 
many a stinging assault upon the successful party, because 
writers upon that side kept up a shower of epithets upon her 
and her memory, of which "Jezebel" was perhaps the most 
commonly employed. The majorit}' could always defend 
what had been done, on the plea that it was necessary for the 
public peace ; but every time that that defence was put for- 
ward, thoughtful men must have asked themselves what it was 
that brought the community into such a heated state that the 
care of the public peace should have made such measures 
requisite. And the more they thought of it the more plainly 
must they have come to see that the source of their trouble 
was in the mingling of Church and State. 

It may well be that this case of Mrs. Hutchinson's was one 
of the steps by which the descendants of the Puritans learned 
the great lesson which the Puritans of two hundred and fifty 
years ago had not learned — that, in a free country like ours, 
not only must the State keep its hand off from the Church, 
but that the Church also can better accomplish her own work 



JO 

when she makes no claim whatever to the control of the 
State. 

I have spoken of two out of the three contests which filled 
the minds and occupied the thoughts of the Puritans of two 
hundred and fifty years ago — the political and the religious 
controversy. If I had time, T would like to speak of the 
third — the Pequot war. I should like to give you some ex- 
tracts from the narrative, which I suspect most of you have 
never read, written by Captain John Mason, who led that 
little band of ninety men on that fearless expedition and 
struck the terrible blow which gave the growing colonies free- 
dom from fear of the horrors of Indian warfare for thirty 
years. I suspect that many of the particulars of that history 
might prove to have become new again from very lapse of 
time. About two months ago the newspapers of the country 
published an item announcing the death at North Stonington, 
Conn., of Mrs. Eunice Cottrell, at the age of 115. The item 
stated that she was a great-grandchild of King Philip, and 
also the oldest descendant of the Pequot Indians, and it was 
added that her father was killed in this very Pequot war by 
Captain John Mason and his troops — a curious conglomeration 
of errors. Mrs. Cottrell may have been the oldest descendant 
of the Pequots ; but, if she were, it would require some ex- 
planation to show how she could also be a descendant of King 
Philip, for Philip was not a Pequot , and, if her father was 
killed in the Pequot war, which took place two hundred and 
fifty years ago, it follows that even if she lived to the great 
age of 115, she must have been born one hundred and thirty- 
five years after her father's death ! 

So far as I saw, that item went all over the country with- 
out correction, so faint has become the knowledge of the his- 
tory of that early time and of this -notable incident in it, of 
which all New England must have been talking two hundred 
and fifty years ago. 

How little even we, the descendants of those New England 
men, know of the details of their history. Most of us, I fancy, 
are satisfied with reading and having our children read some 
general history in which a few pages are devoted to all those 
early years. It ought not so to be, and I think all our New 



71 

England Societies ought to be, as our Society in Brooklyn 
has been, a means not only of the glorification of our ancestors 
over an annual dinner table, but of giving us information on 
particular points of their history — sketches in detail of smaller 
parts of the general view, by which we may be made better 
acquainted with the men and the times. 

1 thank you, Mr. President and gentlemen, for the oppor- 
tunity afforded me to do a little in that good work. If I have 
succeeded in interesting you, ladies and gentlemen, and 
especially if I have led any among you to take up the study of 
those times for yourselves, and to delve in the mines of his- 
torical lore for the interesting knowledge which may be found 
there, which will enable you to form a truer and juster esti- 
mate of our Puritan ancestors — truer and juster, because 
founded on fuller knowledge — I shall be amply repaid. 

It is not a very pleasant page of their history that I have 
turned for you. If I had set out only to glorify them I should 
not have chosen it. But we may be instructed not only by the 
excellencies of good men, but by their faults and errors ; and 
I believe that with all their faults, the Puritans were well de- 
scribed by one of the writers of the time, who says that, " The 
first beginners of this plantation were an excellent set of real, 
living Christians." And I believe that the cultivation of accu- 
rate knowledge of their history and lives must tend to the 
preservation of what is best in social life and government 
among their descendants. Such a knowledge v/ill enable us to 
judge them justly, so that we shall not, in looking at their 
virtues, refuse to see and profit by their faults and errors ; or, 
in looking at their faults, fail to appreciate their sterling vir- 
tues. 

In this loose-robed and light-minded age, when I find men 
Mdio can only speak of the Puritans with a sneer as "strait- 
laced and long-faced." I am disposed to agree with Mr. Samuel 
Pepys, who was himself no Puritan, but who, living in the days 
of Charles II. saw what was the result in England of bringing 
into power the opponents of the Puritans, and who wrote in 
his diary : " This business of abusing Puritans begins to grow 
stale and of no use, they being the people that at last will be 
found the wisest." 



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